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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
MARTIN LUTHER

Riverside Popular Biographies

THE

LIFE AND LETTERS OF

MARTIN LUTHER

PRESERVED SMITH, Ph.D.

" Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice."

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

(Che Ifttoewibe $res£" Cambribge

1914

^tM^L

Published May iqu

Maim.Lib.HISTORfl

TO MY PARENTS

Oi\f\4 A o

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The last word on a live subject is never said. As an immense
volume of work on Luther continues to pour from the press, I
propose, in the immediately following pages, to give some ac-
count of the most important and pertinent literature produced
since this biography first went to press.

The most striking recent contribution to the subject, both on
account of its size and of the altercation it has aroused, is the
biography, in three volumes and 2500 lexicon-octavo pages, by
Professor Hartmann Grisar, S.J. As his interest centers in the
character of the Reformer and the moral effect of his work, the
Catholic scholar, assuming the role of prosecuting attorney,
labors, with much learning and a real intention of doing justice,
to prove that both were bad. Whereas the specialist may learn
much from Grisar, his whole point of view, as well as that taken
by most of his Protestant critics, is foreign to the impartial
investigator.

More than a dozen volumes, many of them bringing fresh light,
have been added to the Weimar edition of Luther's works. Per-
haps the most interesting are those devoted to the table-talk.
Much new material, not inferior in value to that already known,
has been discovered, and bears out the opinion of Froude that
the table-talk is " one of the most brilliant books in the world
... as full of matter as Shakespeare's plays." In order to
make these newly published conversations of Luther accessible
to the English-speaking public, a translation of them is now
being executed and may be expected shortly to appear.

Three more volumes of the letters in the Enders-Kawerau
edition have come out. An English version of the correspond-
ence, containing also letters by Luther's contemporaries on him
and his movement, is now in course of publication.1

1 Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, translated and edited
by Preserved Smith, vol. i, 1507-1521, Philadelphia, 1913. The second and third
volumes, completing the whole, may he expected hefore the centenary of 1917.

vin PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Of Luther's early life and development prior to 1517 I have
now arrived at a somewhat different conception from that set
forth in the present biography.1 Sturdy as was the Saxon's
constitution, a neurotic vein may be detected in his violence of
language, in his obsession by the devil, and, one is tempted to
add, in that conception of God as a cruel and capricious tyrant,
which he himself confessed was repugnant to natural feeling.2
By the application of Sigismund Freud's psycho - analytic
method, much of this diathesis may be explained as rooted in
Luther's heredity and childish experiences. A pathological exag-
geration is also exhibited in the struggle, during the first ten
years in the friary, with what he himself called " the invincible
concupiscence " of the flesh. Regarding not only overt acts of
unchastity, but also natural desire itself, as wicked, and finding
that by no means could he rid himself of this desire, he came
to that conclusion as to the total impotence and bondage of the
will, which lay at the basis of his most famous doctrine. His
insight into the worthlessness of man's own efforts, and par-
ticularly of the righteousness of works prescribed by the Church,
was sharpened by a brisk quarrel with the " observants," i.e.,
' that faction of his own order which laid most stress on the
punctilio of the cloister. For a long time, however, he despaired
of finding the true road to salvation, and believed himself rep-
robate. The answer to his search, suggested by the German
mystics, came to him about 1515 3 with such force that he be-

1 " Luther's Development in the Light of Psycho-Analysis," American Journal
of Psychology, July, 1913. "Luther's Development of the Doctrine of Justifica-
tion by Faith only," Harvard Theological Review, October, 1913. The first article
has been criticized in the Hislorische Zeitschrift and in the Archiv fur Reformations-
geschichte, but the legitimacy of the psycho-analytic method is now recognized in
certain theological quarters. Cf. J. H. Schulz in Theologische Liter aturzeitung,
1914, p. 36 : " Fur die Erforschung einzelner religionspsychologisch oder historisch
bedeutsamer Erscheinungen oder Personlichkeiten kann die psychoanalytische
Betrachtungsweise anregend wirken."

2 Infra, p. 208, and Tischreden, Weimar, i, no. 1193 : " Erasmus' thought is the
greatest and subtlest of all temptations, the belief, namely, that God is unjust."
He called it " Erasmus' thought " because Erasmus had said that if God were such
as Luther represented him, damning men for acts they could not help, he would
be unjust.

3 Not in 1508, as stated below, p. 15. The best recent works on this subject,
besides Grisar, are : O. Scheel: Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung, 1911 ; K. A.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix

lieved it to be a direct revelation of the Holy Ghost. Its essence
was that a man could be saved only by perfect self-surrender,
by pure passivity in God's hands, by an entire reliance on him ;
for this, more than mere belief, constituted the " faith," justifi-
cation by which has always been counted the cardinal doctrine
of Protestants.

The effect of this discovery in his own life was almost instan-
taneous. Forthwith he commenced purging his order and his uni-
versity, and presently protested against the abuses of the Church
so vigorously as to bring himself into collision with her repre-
sentatives, and soon to cause him to be summoned before the
Diet at Worms. The importance of this crisis in European
politics has been put in strong light by two recent books.1
Schubert has shown that the Pope offered Frederic of Saxony
the imperial crown in exchange for the surrender of Luther —
an insufficient bribe. When Charles of Spain was elected, his
agents swore to a capitulation, drawn up, July 3, 1519, with
Luther in mind, that no German should be condemned unheard ;
and, in fact, on the very day on which Charles decided to hold
his first Diet he agreed to allow the accused heretic to appear
before it. When he actually did come to the bar of this high tri-
bunal, his condemnation (as is set forth by Kalkoff) had already
been drafted by Aleander as early as December, 1520, and,
under the name of the " Edict of Worms," was forced through
the Diet by intrigue and imperial influence against the wishes
of the majority of its members.

Forced by the ban into hiding at the Wartburg, Luther began
his greatest work, the translation of the Bible. It has recently
been asserted that this was but a revision of previous German
versions,2 but the reasons given for this opinion are not convinc-
ing. In the New Testament, at least, if he leaned too heavily

Meissinger: Luther s Exegese in der Fruhzeit, 1911 ; A. Humbert: Les Origines de
latUologie moderne, 1911 ; W. Kohler: " Luther bis 1521," in Pflugk-Harttung's
Im Morgenrot der Reformation, 1912.

1 H. v. Schubert : Die Vorgeschichte der Berufung Luther s aufden Reichstag zu
Worms (Sitzungsberichte d. heidelberger Akademie, 1912, vi) ; P. Kalkoff: Die
Entstehung des Wormser Edikts, 1913.

2 Vedder : The German Reformation, 1914 ; W. W. Florer : Luther's Use of pre-
Lutheran Versions of the Bible, Anne Arbor, 1913.

x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

on the authority of any predecessor, it was on the Latin trans-
lation pubished by Erasmus in the second edition of the Greek
text (1519). The sole evidence of the use of earlier versions is
found in the slight resemblances between them and Luther's
Bible. There is no direct testimony that the Reformer knew
previous translations, and this is the more remarkable now that
the minutes of the proceedings of his commission for revising
his first edition have been published.1 They put in a stronger
light than ever the extreme care with which he worked, and
also the ineradicable subjectivity of his attitude. He knew no
interpretation, no exegesis whatever, unconditioned by prac-
tical interests, the chief of which was the confutation of his
opponents.

On one point there is no difference of opinion, the remarkable
and immediate success of the work. A wide examination 2 of
contemporary literature has shown that by 1526, three fourths
of the quotations from the New Testament in German were from
Luther's version. The Catholics paid it the sincere compliment
of plagiarism — for the rapidly executed version of Emser was
but a light revision of his opponent's work. Only the Zwing-
lians for a time stood aloof.

Luther's inconsistency in claiming for the Bible an infallible
authority, and at the same time in criticizing and rejecting
parts of it himself, has been noted below (p. 267/*.). For the
former, from his own day to this, Luther has been praised and
followed ; for the latter he has frequently been blamed. And
yet] there is no doubt that the second position is the rational
and progressive one ; whereas the first has been responsible for
much with which Protestantism may justly be blamed. Not only
in rejecting certain texts was he inconsistent, but in relying
solely on tradition in defending usages, such as the observance
of Sunday instead of Saturday, and infant baptism, for which
no support can be found in Scripture. But his self-contradic-
tions hurt him less than his consistencies ; for it was on the au-

1 Deutsche Bibel, Weimar, iii, 1911. There were three revisions, 1531, 1534,
and 1539, not one, as stated helow, p. 264.

2 H. Zerener : Studien tiber das beginnende Eindringen der lutherischen Bibel-
iibersetzung in die deutsche Literatur, 1911. *

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi

thority of the Bible that he opposed the scientific work of other
men, and also justified two or three immoral principles. Coper-
nicus he called a great big fool for thinking he knew more than
the inspired writers about the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
Erasmus he charged with atheism for applying sound critical
principles to the elucidation of the Greek Testament. Polygamy
and even concubinage1 he tolerated on the ground that they
were practiced by the patriarchs and not forbidden by the apos-
tles. Lying in a pious cause he claimed was sanctioned by the
example of Christ.2 For the horrible cruelties of persecution, he,
and still more his followers, found ample warrant in the wars
of the Israelites.

All "this should serve to remind us that it is a momentous
error to suppose that Luther and we have lived in the same era
of civilization.3 Here, as so often, our thought has been the
slave of an outworn terminology. Because it has for long been
the fashion to divide the history of the world since the fall of
Rome into two epochs, " mediaeval " and " modern," we perforce
assume that if Luther was not mediaeval he must have been
almost contemporary with us; or, on the other hand, if it is
shown that he differed widely from twentieth-century standards,
that he must have lived, intellectually, in the dark ages. It is
truer to see in the last five hundred years two distinct eras,
differing as much from each other as the former differed from
the Middle Ages proper. It would be well if we had some con-
venient name, such as the " Age of Transition," for the period
of Renaissance and Reformation, covering roughly the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, and reserved the term
" modern " exclusively for the last two hundred years, heralded
by the " enlightenment " of the " philosophers " and the eman-
cipation of the American and French Revolutions. Let us

1 On polygamy cf . infra, index. On concubinage, Luther's " Sermon on Mar-
riage," 1522, Weimar, x, part ii, p. 290 : " Will die Frau nicht [die eheliche Pflicht
zalilen] so komme die Magd."

2 Infra, p. 383, n. 4.

«8 On Luther's place in history and thought, recent works are : E. Troeltsch :
Protestantism and Progress, 1912 ; H. S. Chamberlain : ' Foundations of the Nine-
teenth Century, 1911 (in parts) ; A. V. Muller : Luther s theologische Quetten, 1912;
A. C. McGiffert: Protestant Thought before Kant, 1911.

xii PREFACE -TO THE SECOND EDITION

examine briefly the points in which Luther and his world dif-
fered, first, from modern times, and, secondly, from the Middle
Ages.

In the first place the Reformation did not claim to be an
appeal to reason, or in any sense a progressive movement. "We
know," said the Reformer, "that Reason is the Devil's harlot,
who can do nothing but slander and harm all that God says and
does." 1 Protestant and Catholic alike have been consistently
opposed to the march of improvement, be it scientific or social.
Indeed, the direct influence of the Protestant revolt was at first
disastrous to the dawn of enlightenment. We cannot quite agree
with Nietzsche that " the Reformation was a reaction of spirits
behind the times, against the Italian Renaissance,"2 but we
must recognize that the two movements were antagonistic in as
many points as those in which they were united, and that the
spirit of the Renaissance passed rather into the Church of Rome
than into those of Wittenberg and Geneva.3 If modern Pro-
testantism has shown greater hospitality to science and philoso-
phy than has Catholicism, the reverse was true of the earlier
centuries. In short, " Luther's most regrettable limitation was
that he neither absorbed the cultural elements offered by his
time, nor recognized the right and duty of free research." 4

Gibbon observed long ago that if a " philosopher " studied
the dogmas of the Reformed Churches, he would be astonished
not by what they rejected, but by the amount they kept. Even
the existence of a personal, ethical God, and of u future life,
though still commonly believed, can no longer be postulated as
they were by the Reformers. But further than this, they took
almost entire the body of Catholic dogma, the Trinity, the
miracles and resurrection of Christ, the atonement, and many
other mysteries. The one trenchant reform made by Luther in
the field of pure dogma, that of the sacramental system of the
Church, was not due to his special enlightenment, but " because

1 Weimar, xviii, 164. Cf. Weimar, xlvii, 474.

2 Menchliches, Allzumenchliches, 1878, p. 200.

3 E. Troeltseh : " Renaissance und Reformation," Historische Zeitschrift, ex,
519 ff, 1913.

4 A. Harnack : Dogmengeschichte *, iii, 1910, p. 816.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii

of his inner experience that where ' grace ' does not endow the
soul with God, the sacraments are an illusion." *

In harmony with this dogmatic conservatism, Luther took over
almost unchanged the prevalent conception of society, which with
him, as with the Middle Ages, remained essentially that of an
authoritative ecclesiastical civilization. His famous pamphlet
on The Liberty of a Christian Man sets forth an idea of free-
dom remote from our own. With us liberty means not only the
relaxation of external restraint upon the conscience, but the
right to range untrammeled through all fields of culture, and
the joy in doing so. With Luther a Christian was " the most
free lord of all " simply because no amount of force could com-
pel him to renounce his faith ; his liberty was, like that of the
Stoic, mere indifference to the world.

For political equality and for social reform as such Luther
never cared at all. When in 1525 the serfs demanded their
enfranchisement, the Reformer followed St. Paul (1 Cor. vn,
20/.) in denying them this right. His hatred and distrust of
the common people were such that, notwithstanding his opinion
of princes as usually " the biggest fools and worst rascals on
earth," he preferred despotism to democracy. " The princes of
the world," he once said, " are gods ; the common people are
Satan." 2 Again he remarked that he would sooner bear with a
government which did wrong than with a people which did right.3
In fact the "divine right of kings" found a strong support
in Lutheranism. Popular government first arose in England and
America under Calvinism, and in France under Catholicism.

The Wittenberg professor never doubted the right and duty
of the State to persecute for heresy. While still fighting for
the opportunity to express his own opinions, indeed, he took a
liberal view, and one of his early propositions condemned by
the bull Exsurge Domine, was that it was contrary to the will of
the Holy Spirit to put heretics to death. Again in 1525 he said:
" The government shall not interfere ; a man may teach and
believe what he likes, be it gospel or lies." 4 But a very few years

1 A. Harnack : What is Christianity ? p. 279.

2 Tischreden, Weimar, i, 171.

3 Werke, Erlangen, vol. 50, p. 294. * Weimar, xviii, 298/.

xiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

of success convinced him and Melanchthon of the untenability
of this attitude. In 1529, with the consent of the Elector John
and of Melanchthon, who were present, an imperial edict was
passed at Spires condemning Anabaptists to death. In pursu-
ance of this law, a regular inquisition was established in Saxony,
with the " gentle " Melanchthon at its head, and a hideous per-
secution began.1 In a short time several of the poor noncon-
formists were put to death, and many others imprisoned for long
terms. Melanchthon wrote a paper to justify this course ; this
he did by asking, " Why should we pity such men more than
does God ? " who, it was believed, sent them to eternal torment
for their opinions. Luther signed this document,2 with a post-
script showing that he was a little sorry for the poor people ;
about the same time, in a commentary on the Eighty-second
Psalm,3 he expressed equally intolerant ideas. According to
this the government should put to death: 1. All heretics who are
seditious, anarchical, or who preach against private property.
2. " Those who teach against a manifest article of the faith,
clearly grounded in Scripture, and believed throughout Chris-
tendom, like the articles children learn in the creed ; as, for ex-
ample, if any one should teach that Christ was not God but a
mere man. . . . They should not be tolerated but punished as
public blasphemers." 3. If there are two sects within one state,
one should yield to the other to avoid conflict. Luther says he
would advise his own followers to yield to the Catholics in such
a case, but conversely, if Catholics in a Lutheran state refused
to be convinced, they should be chastized. The Reformer contin-
ues that a Papist cannot be sure of his faith, and therefore must
be punished by those who are certain he errs, just as a murderer
should be punished even if he believed that murder was right.
Later he said that Jews should be prohibited from the exercise
of their religion on pain of death.

It is no wonder that some authorities have seen in the Ref-
ormation an actually retrograde movement in this regard, and
have thought that the fanaticism it aroused really sharpened

1 P. Wappler : Die Stellung Kursachsens und PMlipps von Hessen zur Tauferbe-
wegung, 1910.

2 Enders, xiv, 129 (1531). 8 Weimar, xxxi, part i, 208/.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xv

the persecuting spirit.1 It seems truer to say, however, that
the schism created rather fresh opportunity than an increased
desire to persecute. When nearly every one conformed there
was small possibility of active intolerance, and throughout the
Middle Ages the Church had a thousand times exhibited her
ruthless cruelty. What made the Reformers peculiarly inexcus-
able was that they denied to others the very right for which
they themselves were fighting.

Turning now to the new in Luther, we must first of all be
on our guard against measuring him too exclusively by our
contemporary standards. Nothing is more unhistorical than
the method, now quite common, of searching the past with the
sole idea of unearthing some anticipation of modern thought.
Whether sympathetic to us or not, Luther gave to the prob-
lems of his time the accepted and therefore the historically
valid answer. Less enlightened than Erasmus, and with less
of the truly evangelic spirit, he was, because more suited to '
his time and otherwise more effective, historically greater. And
his services to mankind were solid and important.
u***Jj£jLThe greatest of these was undoubtedly that he broke the
jTJ strongest tyranny and dissolved the worst monopoly that the
world has ever known, that of the Roman Church. Whether
the various companies into which the Standard Religion Trust
resolved itself were intrinsically better than the original corpo-
ration was far less important than the fact that these smaller
bodies did effectually, and even in a cut-throat spirit, compete.
The pretensions of a single authority to infallibility are plausi-
ble ; but two or more churches, each claiming to be the sole
purveyor of salvation, and mutually giving each other the lie,
must by their very existence arouse skepticism.

Again the Reformation was really a progressive movement,
and not, as it claimed to be, mainly the return to an earlier
standpoint. Crying " Back ! " the Reformers really went for-
ward, simply because they could not, with all their efforts, grasp

1 On the subject in general : Q. L. Burr : " Anent the Middle Ages," American
Historical Review, 1913, pp. 710-26; N. Paulus : Protestantismus und Toleranz,
1911; K. Volker: Toleranz und Intoleranz im Zeitalter der Reformation, 1912 ;
F. Ruffini: Religious Liberty, 1912 ; R. Lewin : Luthers Stellung zu den Juden, 1911.

xvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

the primitive ideas of the Gospel. Protestantism is remote in
spirit from the early Church, because the sixteenth century is
remote in time from the first. In almost all points Catholicism
is nearer to the New Testament than is Protestantism.1 Even
the famous "sola fide" is less Pauline than Luther supposed,
because its main corollary, the antithesis to the sacramental
system, would not have occurred to the Tarsian. Another ex-
ample is the progressive history of the eucharist. Recent
research has abundantly shown that the theophagy of the New
Testament was understood by the early Christians in a far
more literal sense than it has ever been since. Transubstan-
tiation was not, as generally represented, the gross invention of a
superstitious age, interpreting too literally the words : " Take,
eat ; this is my body "; rather it was the first attempt to ration-
alize that language. In substituting the closely related theory
of consubsantiation, Luther took another step in the same direc-
tion, not because he intentionally consulted his senses, — this he
passionately deprecated, — but because, without the historical
knowledge and imagination to put himself in Paul's place, any
movement whatever on his part was bound to be conditioned by
the atmosphere of contemporary thought. The final step was
taken by Zwingli, in which the original mystery, founded in a
forgotten and almost primeval culture, was turned into a simple
commemorative rite.

So in other things, Luther was, contrary to his own intention,
the father of modern undogmatic Christianity, and through that,
to a degree, of modern rationalism. Emerson quite rightly
stated that had Luther known his Theses would lead to Boston
Unitarianism he would rather have cut off his hand than have
posted them. But once the avalanche was started, he was im-
potent to stop it. Having pushed men but a little way from the
unstable equilibrium of ideal Catholic faith, he put them in a
condition necessitating further motion. Indeed, not only was
he the spiritual ancestor of many Christian sects which he would
have anathematized, but even, to a certain extent, of infidelity.
There is a measure of truth in Nietzsche's assertion that the great

1 So Kirsopp Lake, in The Harvard Theological Beview, 1914, pp. 429, 431 ;
G. Santayana: Reason and Religion, 1905, 114-24.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xvii

Saxon first began to teach the Germans to be un-Christian. On
the other hand, it must be recognized that Protestantism has in
some cases acted as a vaccination against free thought ; the small
dose seasonably administered inoculates against a more for-
midable infection, later. Thus Catholic France and Italy have
become more skeptical than Protestant Germany, England, and
America.

As in Church so in State, Luther was a secularist in spite of
himself. In freeing society from the heavy burden of monas-
ticism, with its attendant evils of unproductive idleness and
sterility, he restored to the World energies previously devoted
to religion. In declaring that all laymen were priests, he really
reduced all priests, with their divine and magical powers, to the
rank of laymen. In this also, this unconscious secularization of
the ideal, Wittenberg stood farther from Galilee than did Rome.
It is the Founder of Christianity who bids us hate father and
mother, wife and child for his sake; who points the way to celi-
bacy by his example and his approbation of men " who have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake"; who
finds the poor blessed and the rich unable to enter God's king-
dom ; who inculcates humility and lives rather for contempla-
tion and prayer than for active life and learning. In all this
it is St. Francis who is his truest disciple, and the monastic ideal
which is like that of Jesus, unworldly, disenchanted, ascetic.
Luther and his followers, on the contrary, are convinced of
the importance of success and prosperity ; they abominate the
disreputable ; think of contemplation as idleness, of solitude
as selfishness, and of poverty as a punishment. Married and
industrial life is typically godly. Calvinism furnished the moral
sanction for capitalism ; the Protestant theologian Richard Bax-
ter declared that in neglecting the opportunity to make money
a man was guilty of a sin. This position may be defended on
many grounds, as common sense or as conducive to the best
interests of society ; but it is not the ethics of the Gospel. Just
as on the intellectual side Protestantism approaches a pious
skepticism, so on the ethical side it has been reduced to the
sanctimonious authorization for an extremely materialistic civi-
lization.

xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

After all, Luther's strongest appeal to us is his own person-
ality. His true originality is his character, his greatest work
his life, his most remarkable achievement himself.

P. S.

Mobbisvtlle, Vermont, July 22, 1914.

PREFACE

It can hardly be denied that the men who have most changed
history have been the great religious leaders. " Priest, Teacher,"
says Carlyle, " whatsoever we can fancy to reside in man, em-
bodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with con-
stant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we
are to do." Among the great prophets, and, with the possible
exception of Calvin, the last of world-wide importance, Martin
Luther has taken his place. His career marks the beginning of
the present epoch, for it is safe to say that every man in western
Europe and in America is leading a different life to-day from
what he would have led, and is another person altogether from
what he would have been, had Martin Luther not lived. For the
most important fact in modern history is undoubtedly the great
schism of which he was the author, the consequences of which are
still unfolding and will continue to unfold for many a century to
come. In saying this we do not attribute to him the sole re-
sponsibility for the revolt from Rome. The study of history, as
of evolution in other forms, has shown that there are no abrupt
changes, — appearances to the contrary, — and that one epoch
follows another as naturally and with as gradual a development
as one season follows another in the year. In a sense the Pro-
testant revolt, and the larger movement of which it was but
the chief symptom, the expansion of the human mind, was inevit-
able. In another sense, equally true, it was the courage and
genius of a great man which made it possible. If some such
crisis was inevitable, he at least determined its time and to a
large extent its direction. Granting, as axiomatic, that essential
factors of the movement are to be found in the social, political,'
and cultural conditions of the age, and in the work of prede-
cessors and followers, in short, in the environment which alone
made Luther's lifework possible, there must still remain a very
large element due directly and solely to his personality.

xx PREFACE

•

The present work aims to explain that personality ; to show
him in the setting of his age ; to indicate what part of his work
is to be attributed to his inheritance and to the events of the
time, but especially to reveal that part of the man which seems,
at least, to be explicable by neither heredity nor environment,
and to be more important than either, the character, or individ-
uality.

A new biography of Luther, however, requires more apology
than is to be found merely in the intrinsic interest of the sub-
ject. A glance at the catalogue of almost any great library —
that of the British Museum for instance — will show that more
has been written about Luther than about any man, save one,
who ever lived. Why bring another coal to this Newcastle ?

One main reason is to be found in the extraordinarily rapid
advance of recent research, which, within the last ten, and still
more, of course, within the last twenty years, has greatly
changed our knowledge of the man. For example, the publica-
tion, in 1908, of the long lost Commentary on the Epistle to
the Romans has revolutionized our conception of the Reformer's
early development ; the opening of the Vatican Archives by the
late Pope, by which many important documents were first
(1904) brought to light, has at last revealed the true history of
the legal process taken against the heretic by the Curia ; the
researches of Dr. Kroker have but lately (1906) enabled us to
speak with precision of the early life of Catharine von Bora;
those of Dr. Rockwell (1904) have performed a similar service
for an important incident in Luther's life. Again, the great
edition of Luther's Works published at Weimar, and of the
letters by Dr. Enders and Professor Kawerau, both of which
are still in progress, have now made possible a more scientific
study of his most important works. A few random instances,
however, can give no adequate idea of the number of details,
not to mention larger matters, which have first been revealed
within the last decade. I have aimed to gather up, correlate,
and present the results of recent research now scattered through
a host of monographs. This has seemed to me the most pressing
need of the present, and I have, therefore, only to a limited
extent used unpublished material. In several points, however,

PREFACE

xxi

my own studies have led me to different conclusions from those
commonly held, and I venture to hope that this feature of the
book will not be without value to specialists.

In another respect the present work undertakes to present
Luther to English readers from a standpoint different to that
from which he is usually approached. I have endeavored to re-
veal him as a great character rather than as a great theologian.
In order to do this I have given copious extracts from his table-
talk and letters, those pregnant documents in which he unlocks
his heart. No such self -revelation as is found in them exists else-
where. Neither Pepys, nor Cellini, nor Rousseau has told us as
much about his real self as has Luther about himself. Every
trait of character is revealed : the indomitable will, " and cour-
age never to submit or yield," the loyalty to conscience, the
warm heart, the overflowing humor, the wonderful gift of
seeing the essence of things and of expressing what he saw, and
also the vehement temper and occasional coarseness of a rugged
peasant nature. In the tremulous tone of the first epistles is
reflected the anguish of a soul tortured by doubt and despair ;
later the writer tells with graphic force of the momentous
debate at Leipsic ; again, in the same hour in which he stood
before the Emperor and Diet at Worms, asked to recant and
expecting death if he did not, he writes a friend that he will
never take back one jot or tittle. The letters from the Wart-
burg and Feste Coburg breathe the author's fresh, almost idyl-
lic communion with nature ; in the table-talk it is now the warm
family affection which charms, now the irrepressible, rollicking
joviality which bursts forth. The man's faults, too, stand in his
unconscious autobiography, neither dissembled nor attenuated.
Two blunders, his incitement to bloody reprisals against the re-
bellious peasants and his acquiescence in the bigamy of Philip
of Hesse, blunders which his enemies called crimes, are frankly
told in all the hideousness of their conception and consequences.
It is, moreover, plain to the reader of the letters and table-talk
that Luther was often in language and sometimes in thought the
child of a coarse age. But of him it is especially true that to
understand all is to pardon all. Through all his mistakes, and
worse, he emerges a good and conscientious as well as a very

xxn PREFACE

great man : a son of thunder calling down fire from heaven ; a
Titan hurling Pelion upon Ossa against the hostile gods.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help I have received from
many quarters. Professor Adolph Harnack has personally as-
sisted my researches in the Berlin Royal Library. To Dr. Cowley
and Professor Reginald Lane Poole I am indebted for special
facilities in the use of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Dr.
Ernest Kroker, of Leipsic, has given me several valuable sug-
gestions. Principal J. Estlin Carpenter, of Manchester College,
Oxford, has kindly placed at my disposal the excellent collection
of Lutherana made by the late Dr. Beard, whose History of the
Reformation to the Diet of Worms, unfortunately left unfinished
at his death (1888), is a well-known contribution to the subject.
My friend Dr. David Saville Muzzy, of New York, has kindly
revised the chapter on the Peasants' Revolt ; Professor R. L.
Poole, and Mr. Percy S. Allen, Fellow of Merton College, Ox-
ford, have done the same for the chapter on Luther and
Henry VIII as it originally appeared in the English Historical
Review. My friend, Professor Herbert P. Gallinger, of Amherst,
has read the proofs. I feel under especial obligations to Professor
Gustav Kawerau, of Berlin, who, during my long stay afe the
Prussian capital, with the greatest possible kindness placed at
my disposal his rare books and manuscripts and his more valu-
able time. To all these gentlemen I tender my warmest thanks.
Last, but not least in love, I must acknowledge the help received
in my own family. My father, the Rev. Dr. Henry Preserved
Smith, has read the whole manuscript, and thus given me the
benefit of his lifelong studies in divinity and experience as a
writer. My sister, Miss Winifred Smith, and my wife have also
aided me with criticism and suggestion.

P. S.

Paris, May 16, 1910.

LIST OF LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES USED
IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK

ENGLAND

London : British Museum, and Dr. Williams's Library.
Oxford : Bodleian Library.

GERMANY

Berlin : Konigliche Bibliothek, Universitatsbibliothek, and private

library of Professor Gustav Kawerau.
Leipsic : Universitatsbibliothek and Stadtbibliothek.
Marburg : State Archives and Universitatsbibliothek.

FRANCE

Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale, Bibliotheque de Sainte-Genevieve,
Bibliotheque Mazarine, Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne, Bibliotheque
de la Faculty Protestante.

UNITED STATES
Boston : Public Library.
Cambridge : Harvard University Library.
New York : Columbia University, Union Seminary, Astor and Lenox

Libraries.
Washington : Congressional Library.

CONTENTS

/* I. Childhood and Student Life. 1483-1505 1

I II. The Monk. 1505-1512 8

III. The Journey to Rome. October, 1510-February, 1511 16

IV. The Professor. 1512-1517 20

* </V. The Indulgence Controversy. 1517-1519 36

VI. The Leipsic Debate. 1519 58

VII. The Patriot. 1519-1520 69

VIII. The Address to the German Nobility, The Babylon-
ian Captivity of the Church, and The Freedom

of a Christian Man. 1520 76

4 IX. The Burning of the Canon Law and of the Pope's

Bull. 1520 95

\ X. The Diet of Worms. 1521 103

XI. The Wartburg. May 4, 1521-March 1, 1522 .... 121
XII. The Wittenberg Revolution and the Return from

•rtiE Wartburg. 1521-1522 135

XIII. Carlstadt and Munzer. 1522-1525 147

*XIV. The Peasants' Revolt. 1525 157

^ XV. Catharine von Bora 168

XVI. Private Life. 1522-1531 182

^XVII. Henry VIII 192

&VIII. Erasmus 199

XIX. German Politics. 1522-1529 214

XX. Church Building 229

XXI. Ulrich Zwtngli ... 238

. XXII. Feste Coburg and the Diet of Augsburg. 1530 . . 247

xxvi CONTENTS

XXIII. The German Bible 263

XXIV. The Religious Peace of Nuremberg. 1532 . . .271
XXV. The Church Militant 279

XXVI. The Wittenberg Agreement. 1536 288

XXVII. Relations with France, England, Mayence and

Albertine Saxony 296

XXVIII. The League of Schmalkalden. 1535-1539 . . . .303

XXIX. Character and Habits 316

XXX. At Work 331

XXXI. Religion and Culture 336

XXXII. The Luther Family 351

XXXIII. Domestic Economy 363

XXXIV. The Bigamy of Philip of Hesse. 1540 373

XXXV. Catholic and Protestant. 1539-1546 387

XXXVI. Lutheran and Sacramentarian. 1539-1546 . . . 402
XXXVII. Death 409

EPILOGUE. The Last Years and Death of Luther's Wife . 424

APPENDIX

I. Chronological Tables 429

II. Bibliography, with References 433

III. Documents 471

INDEX 477

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
MARTIN LUTHER

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD AND STUDENT LIFE. 1483-1505

The hills and forests of Thuringia, in the very heart of
Germany, unite great natural loveliness with the romantic
attractions of ancient historical association. If the traveller
stopping at Eisenach, the tiny metropolis of this favored region,
will walk south for about fifteen miles through the fairy forest,
he may visit the hamlet of Mohra, famous as the home of the
Luther family, still flourishing here in several branches. Here
lived Martin Luther's great-grandfather and grandfather as
peasants — for it is with them that the family pedigree begins.
Attempts to connect the name with that of the Emperor Lo-
thaire, as well as with other noble though less remote person-
ages, have failed.

In the old days when Columbus was meditating his moment-
ous voyage, and Richard III was about to murder his nephews
in the Tower, Hans Luther married Margaret Ziegler of Eise-
nach. Following the ancient peasant custom, by which the
older sons were sent out into the world to make their way,
while the youngest inherited the farm, Hans was forced to take
his wife away from home. He was attracted to the county of
Mansfeld, about sixty miles northeast of Eisenach, then as
now a mining district.

The first stop of the young couple was at Eisleben, and here,
on November 10, 1483, their oldest son was born, and the next
day baptized by the parish priest, Bartholomew Rennebrecher,
with the name Martin, after the saint whose day it was. The
little room under the tower of the church of St. Peter and St.
Paul where the baptism took place is shown, with part of the

2 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

antique foal:, exactly as it was then; the house exhibited as
the birthplace is not, on the other hand, well authenticated.

While Martin was still a wee baby, the Luthers moved to
the town of Mansfeld near by, where they were to spend the
rest of their days. It is a pretty little village in the midst of
its hills, on one of which stands the red sandstone castle of the
Counts of Mansfeld.

The boy's life here was one of grinding, squalid poverty.
The comely little cottage going by the name of the Luther
house was bought or built by his father long after Martin had
left home.

Hans Luther was a sturdy, frugal, hardworking man ; that
admirable type of character, who, having small natural gifts
and no advantages, by sheer industry and will-power makes his
way in the world. Starting as a stranger and a common miner,
he gradually won a small competence and a place of honor
among his fellow citizens, who eventually elected him to the
highest office in the town. A man of natural shrewdness, his
pointed and pithy sayings more than once made a lasting im-
pression upon his son. He was ambitious to give this promising
child the education he himself had lacked, and but for the
wisdom and self-sacrifice with which he pursued this aim, Mar-
tin's career would have been impossible.

The mother, Margaret, was a quiet woman, bowed a little by
poverty and toil. The son remembered seeing her carry on her
back wood gathered from the forest. Both parents were strict,
and even harsh. " My father," Luther said many years later,
" once whipped me so severely that I fled from him, and it was
hard for him to win me back. . . „ My mother once beat me
until the blood flowed, for having stolen a miserable nut. It
was this strict discipline which finally forced me into the mon-
astery, although they meant heartily well by it."

Martin had at least one brother and three sisters. He rarely
saw them and never wrote to them after he left home, at the age
of thirteen. Late in life his relations with them were disturbed
by a quarrel about the division of his father's estate; but this
was smoothed over, and the Reformer did his duty by the family
nobly in caring for several of his orphan nephews and nieces.

CHILDHOOD AND STUDENT LIFE 3

The natural question, What were the first religious influences
experienced by Martin Luther? can be briefly answered. He
was taught a few simple prayers and hymns at his mother's
knee. God the Father and Jesus were represented to him as
stern, nay, cruel judges, to appease whose just wrath the inter-
cession of the saints must be secured. No doubt was entertained
by the humble peasants of the effectiveness of the ministrations
of the Church ; the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and especially the
Pope, were regarded with reverent awe.

One prominent element of the popular religion of the time
was superstition. The gloomy old Northern mythology, full of
witches and kobolds, good spirits and evil spirits, survived from
heathen times. It is hard to imagine now how gross and vivid
was the belief in the supernatural in Hans Luther's house.
Martin never freed himself from it, and many are his reminis-
cences of the witches who plagued his mother. Even his bare-
legged rambles through the hills were haunted by the dread of
surrounding demons. " In my native country," he once said,
" there is a high hill called the Pubelsberg, on top of which is
a lake ; if one throws a stone into the water a great tempest
will arise over the whole region, for it is the habitation of
captive devils. Prussia is full of them, and Lapland full of
witches."

The boy's education began very early in the village school,
which may still be seen by the traveller. Latin was the prin-
cipal subject taught ; the boys were required to speak as well as
read it. Martin's recollections of the ignorance and brutality
of his first teachers were very unhappy indeed. He was flogged
repeatedly on the same morning for faltering in a declension.
" Ah ! " he exclaims, " what a time we had with the lupus l and
Donatus ! 2 My teachers made us parse everything, and made
obscene jokes. The examination was like a trial for murder."

When Luther was only thirteen years old, he was sent to the
school of a religious brotherhood — the u Nullbriider " — at

1 The lupus, or wolf, was the monitor who punished the pupils for speaking-
German.

2 The Latin grammar then and long after in use ; Luther once said it was the
. best.

4 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Magdeburg. Here he began to contribute to his own support by-
begging, in those days one of the recognized means by which a
poor lad might get an education. No more stigma attached to it
than attaches to the acceptance of a scholarship by a student
nowadays. One of the few things known of this year is that the
miserable life brought on a fever, which might have proved fatal
had not the patient drunk some water in disobedience to the
doctor's orders.

It may have been at Magdeburg that Martin's thoughts first
turned in the direction of the monastic life. Erasmus, who
attended one of the schools of the same order, relates graphic-
ally how hard the brothers tried to guide their pupils into the
cloister.1 One incident, at any rate, made so deep an impression
on Luther's mind, that thirty-five years later he wrote of it
thus:2

When, in my fourteenth year, I went to school at Magdeburg, I saw
with my own eyes a prince of Anhalt . . . who went in a friar's cowl
on the highways to beg bread, and carried a sack like a donkey, so
heavy that he bent under it, but his companion walked by him without
a burden ; this prince alone might serve as an example of the grisly,
shorn holiness of the world. They had so stunned him that he did all
the works of the cloister like any other brother, and he had so fasted,
watched, and mortified his flesh that he looked like a death's head,
mere skin and bones ; indeed he soon after died, for he could not long
bear such a severe life. In short, whoever looked at him had to gasp
for pity and must needs be ashamed of his own worldly position.

After one year at Magdeburg, Martin was transferred to Eis-
enach to attend the school of St. George the dragon-killer. His
mother had, in this her native town, a relative named Conrad
Hutter 3 on whose help she counted for her son. Hutter was sex-
ton of St. Nicholas' Church, and it may have been through him
that Luther learned to know and love the parish priest, John
Braun. It was not with his kinsman that he lodged, however,
but with a certain family identified by most biographers with
the Cottas. Luther sometimes speaks in later years of "his

1 Erasmi opera, ed. Clericus, Leyden, 1701, vol. iii, col. 1822.

2 Defence before Duke George, 1533, Erlangen edition, xxxi, 239 ff.
8 O. Clemen : Beitrage zur Beformationsgeschichte, ii, 1.

CHILDHOOD AND STUDENT LIFE 5

hostess of Eisenach," but never by name, assuming her to have
been well known to his audience. She took him in, according to
tradition, " for his hearty singing," and under her charitable and
pious roof the boy for the first time tasted modest comfort.
Frau Cotta was by birth a Schalbe ; this wealthy family had
founded a little Franciscan monastery at the foot of the Wart-
burg,1 with whose inmates young Luther, serious and pious
beyond his years, became friendly. So priestly indeed was his
circle of friends that he heard with astonishment from his host-
ess a little verse to the effect that nothing was dearer on earth
than the love of woman to him who could win it.

The promise of the industrious, bright boy induced his father,
whose circumstances, though not easy, were improving, to con-
tinue his liberal education. Accordingly at the beginning of the
summer semester (about May, 1501) "Martinus Ludher ex
Mansfeld" matriculated at the old and famous University of
Erfurt. It was the custom of students who did not board with
one of the professors to live at a "Burse," a combination of
dormitory and eating-club. Luther lived at the " Burse " of St.
George, which once stood on Lehmann's bridge, but is now no
longer in existence.

The course of studies began with logic, dialectic, grammar,
and rhetoric, followed by arithmetic, various natural sciences,
ethics, and metaphysics. All the studies were sicklied o'er
with a pale cast of scholasticism. Mediaeval thought had pro-
gressed little, if at all, beyond Aristotle, who was regarded as
an inerrant authority, but it had elaborated his rules of argu-
mentation into fantastic extremes, at once dry and ridiculous.
The two most celebrated professors at Erfurt in the early six-
teenth century, Trutvetter and Usingen, were entirely under the
sway of the Stagirite, and one may well believe Melanchthon's
testimony " that a particularly thorny kind of dialectic " pre-
vailed there. The natural sciences were studied absolutely
without experiment or original research, in perfect reliance on
Aristotle's ancient works. The philosophy, too, was founded

1 Not now preserved ; probably it was on or near the Barf iisser Strasse. The
house shown as the Luther house, ». c, Frau Cotta's, is of very doubtful authen-
ticity.

6 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

on his essays, though in this case some changes in his system
had been made by the great thinkers of the Middle Ages in
their endeavors to harmonize it with Christianity. The great
question which agitated mediaeval thought was whether the in-
dividual or the class was the reality ; e. g., in the word " horse,"
is the essential thing each particular horse, or the abstract of
all the qualities which make up the conception? The realists,
who decided in favor of the latter, nourished in the heyday of
scholasticism, but the nominalists, who maintained the former,
had now supplanted them, and Erfurt philosophy was therefore
of this school.

The universities in the sixteenth century were undergoing
a change somewhat similar to that which they are experiencing
in the twentieth. The old mediaeval course, which has just been
sketched, no longer prevailed without opposition. Some rays of
the " new learning," the glorious rebirth of classical antiquity,
had penetrated Erfurt. Indeed there were several courses in the
classics, and a circle of students devoted to the humanities.
The inclinations of the miner's son, however, did not lead him
that way. His serious, religious mind preferred the rough road
of scholasticism to the primrose path of poetry and oratory. He
later regretted that he had read no more history and poems, and
added that the study ,of scholastic philosophy prevented his
reading any verse except Baptista Mantuan,1 Ovid's Heroides,
and Virgil.

Of the student's life little is known. That it was pure and
godly may be inferred from the fact that his enemies never
found any reproach in it and because of the absence of self-
accusation. He sometimes suffered from ill-health and depres-
sion. One day he found a Bible in the library, and began to
read the passage about Hannah and Samuel, but a lecture
called him away, and he apparently did not pursue his reading
farther at this time.2

After taking, with high rank, the degrees of bachelor of arts

1 This late poet (1448-1516), Shakespeare's " good old Mantuan," was a great
favorite of the Renaissance.

2 Kroker: Rorers Tischreden, in Archiv. f. Reformationsgeschichte, no. 20
(1908), p. 345.

CHILDHOOD AND STUDENT LIFE 7

in 1502 and of master in 1505, Luther just began the study of
jurisprudence. This was in accordance with the wishes of his
ambitious father, who bought him an expensive Corpus Juris.
He had worked in law only two months, however, when he
abruptly decided to enter the monastery.

CHAPTEE II

THE MONK. 1505-1512

Various reasons have been assigned for the sudden decision
of Luther to become a monk. The real cause lay in a torturing
sense of sin and a longing for reconciliation with God, experi-
enced by many deeply spiritual Christians at one time or an-
other in their lives. The cloister had been the refuge of such
persons for a thousand years ; to it the Saxon student naturally
turned to find rest for his soul. After all, the seemingly abrupt
vow is only the natural culmination of previous experiences.
The strict discipline of a stern and pious home, the terrible
vision of the begging prince, the priestly circle of friends at
Eisenach, had all pointed the boy to the career then regarded
as the perfection of Christianity.

The influences in the same direction at Erfurt were also
very strong. This flourishing but by no means large town
boasted twenty cloisters, twenty-three churches, thirty-six
chapels, and in all more than one hundred buildings devoted to
religious uses. Among the numerous orders represented by
chapters at " little Kome," as the devout city was called, the
strongest were those of the begging friars, the Franciscans,
Dominicans, and Augustinians.

This last order could not claim, like the others, a great saint
as founder, for Augustine had not written their rule. Since
their first incorporation by Innocent IV in 1243, confirmed by
Alexander IV in 1256, the Augustinian Hermits, as they were
officially called, flourished mightily. By the middle of the
fifteenth century, there were two thousand chapters, and the
order, like most of the older ones, had begun to show some
signs of degeneracy. A reform had been carried through many
of the chapters by Proles, for the last quarter of the fifteenth
century Vicar of the German province. Erfurt had joined
" the congregation of the observants," as the reform movement

THE MONK 9

was called, in 1475. What made Luther choose this monastery
cannot be certainly told ; perhaps some personal ties and the
good fame of the Hermits attracted him.

The spring and early summer of 1505 was a terrible time at
Erfurt. The plague broke out, some of the students died of it,
and most of the others left town in a panic. It is at such times
that men's thoughts turn to the other world, and Luther, who had
already been asking himself the question, " When will you be
righteous and do enough to win a gracious God?" seriously
considered abandoning a worldly for a spiritual calling. The
faculty of law began lecturing on May 19, but the young
student had hardly attended their courses for a month before
he became thoroughly disgusted with a profession which, to his
mind, had no relish of salvation in it. Towards the last of
June he returned to his father's house, perhaps to get permis-
sion to drop his juristic studies.

As he was coming back to the university, on July 2, he was
overtaken at Stotterheim, near Erfurt, by a terrible thunder-
storm, and, in a fright, vowed to St. Anna to be a monk. If it
may seem strange that a young man of twenty-two should be
panic-stricken by a clap of thunder, it must be remembered
that the miner's son regarded such phenomena as frequently
occasioned by the direct interposition of the devil. Moreover,
it has been shown that he probably had the more than half-
formed intention already in his mind. He later speaks of
being warned to enter the cloister by a heavenly vision. What
this was, whether connected with the storm or not, is entirely
unknown.

Old Hans Luther was bitterly opposed to his son's step,
which he believed destroyed all chance of a successful career.
Martin also cast some longing, lingering looks behind, but
dared not turn back, and hastened the day of his entrance to
shorten this temptation. On July 16 he invited some friends,
including " honorable matrons and maidens," to a farewell
supper. The evening was spent in music and good cheer ; the
next day he entered the monastery.

The reception of a would-be brother was a solemn occasion.
The young man fell down before the feet of the prior and was

10 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

asked what he wanted, to which he replied, " God's mercy
and yours." The superior instructed him in the hardships, the
duties, the sacrifices, and also in the blessedness of the life
he had chosen. He was then put under the care of an older
brother, and obliged to fulfil a year of probation. During this
period he not only learned the rules of the order — such as the
prayers five times a day — but he was instructed in the higher
spiritual life. At the same time he was obliged to do the hum-
blest menial service, such as sweeping and cleaning. Luther's
novitiate ended in September, 1506, when he took the irre-
vocable vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, through which
he was supposed to die to the world and be " rebaptized " to a
higher life.

Brother Martin was ordained priest in February, 1507. The
celebration of the first mass was a great occasion, to which he
invited his father, his kinsman Conrad Hutter of Eisenach, and
the parish priest of that town, whom he had learned to love
while at school. Luther's first extant letter is the invitation to
this friend to attend the mass : —

TO JOHN BRAUN AT EISENACH

Erfurt, April 22, 1507.

. . . God, glorious and holy in all his works, has deigned to exalt
me, wretched and unworthy sinner, and to call me into his sublime
ministry only for his mercy's sake. I ought to be thankful for the glory
of such divine goodness (as much as dust may be) and to fulfil the
duty laid upon me.

Wherefore the fathers have set aside Sunday, May 2, for my first
mass, God willing. That day I shall officiate before God for the first
time, the day being chosen for the convenience of my father. . . .
Dearest father, as you are in age and care for me, master in merit and
brother in religion, if private business will permit you, deign to come
and help me with your gracious presence and prayers, that my sacrifice
may be acceptable in God's sight. . . .

Whether Braun accepted the invitation is not known. Lu-
ther's father, however, who seems to have been partially recon-
ciled, came, bringing a number of friends, and gave his son a
handsome present. The two had an earnest talk, the son urging

THE MONK 11

that he was warned to become a monk by a terrible heavenly-
vision, to which his father replied that he hoped it was not an
apparition of the devil. Again, when Martin tried to justify
himself, and gently reproached his father for his anger, the old
man replied, " Have you never heard that a man should honor
his parents ? "

Luther's studies were not long interrupted by his vow. On
the contrary, he continued philosophy and took up divinity, a
nearly allied science. He applied himself with such zeal and
success that about eighteen months after his first mass he was
called to the recently founded University of Wittenberg to teach
Aristotle's Ethics. He spent a year in this position, at the same
time continuing his own studies. He took his first theological
degree (baccalaureus ad biblia) on March 9, 1509, about the
same time writing his second extant letter to Braun, apologizing
for leaving Erfurt without bidding him farewell. The letter,
which is hastily written, and somewhat faltering, has one
extremely interesting passage : —

Now I am at Wittenberg, by God's command or permission. If you
wish to know my condition I am well, thank God, but my studies are
very severe, especially philosophy, which from the first I would will-
ingly have changed for theology, I mean that theology which searches
out the meat of the nut, the kernel of the grain and the marrow of the
bones. But God is God ; man is often, if not always, at fault in his
judgment. He is our God, he will sweetly govern us forever.

In the fall of 1509 Luther was sent back to Erfurt " because
he had not satisfied the Wittenberg faculty." This sentence in
the Dean's book, with Luther's own later addition, "because he
had no means : — Erfurt must pay," is usually taken to mean
that he had not the money to pay the academic fees. It is also
probable that there was some trouble about the lectures he was
to give ; he wishing to discontinue philosophy and take up the
Bible. It was the academic rule that before lecturing on the
Scriptures a young professor should devote three semesters to
expounding Peter Lombard's Sentences, the common textbook
in theology. This Luther did at Erfurt, where he remained for
about twenty-one months, until he was called back to a perman-

12 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ent position at Wittenberg in the summer of 1511. This stay
at Erfurt was interrupted by the journey to Rome.

Such is the bare history of the outward events of the seven
years in the cloister. Far more interesting, though more difficult
to trace, is the record of his inward life during the same time.
What did the young monk experience which fitted him for the
great duties which lay before him ? What, in short, was his
development ?

Instead of finding peace within the monastic cell, at first
doubt and despair only increased. His table-talk, taken down
late in life, is full of statements of the utter depth of the suffer-
ings of the doubter of his own salvation. God appeared to him
as a cruel judge ; he felt that he could never do enough to win
his favor and deserve free pardon. Though there is some reason
to believe that in looking back he painted his past even darker
than it really was, there can be no doubt that he went through
agonies before he attained strength and peace of mind. His
course of thought can be followed by studying the books he
read, with his own notes on them.

The theologians he read belonged to what was then called
"the modern" school — "the modernists" of the sixteenth
century. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest of the school-
men, was not much regarded ; he belonged to the old-fashioned,
superseded faction. The philosopher most studied was William
Occam ; next to him Gabriel Biel, the Parisian doctors Ailly
and Gerson, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventura, John Mau-
burn, and Gerhard of Ziitphen. The fundamental thesis of the
Occamists was that man can do anything he will — fulfil the
Ten Commandments to the letter or persuade his reason that
white is black. The cloister adopted this view and held that by
a man's own acts, asceticism, prayer, and meditation, he could
prepare his soul for union with God. Biel especially emphasized
the possibility and duty of a man hating his own sins ; — fear,
said he, is not enough to make repentance acceptable to God.

Luther took this all in and tried to act accordingly. He
fulfilled all the monastic duties with punctuality ; he buffeted
his body with zeal to keep it under ; he froze in his unheated
cell, he starved himself until he was a skeleton M so that one

THE MONK 13

could almost count his bones," he underwent such austerities
that he was found fainting by his brothers. But all this did not
bring him peace. After each access of devotion came a fresh
access of despair.

A second doctrine that Luther imbibed frojB the^theqlogians
was that God is pure, arbitrary will. He had created the world y
solely for his own pleasure ; hisjyill made right and wrong ; and
finally his arbitrary choice alone conditioned man's salvation. *w
But in this latter particular, having promised to consider certain
actions as meritorious, he has put in each man's power to obtain
his favor by performing these acts, and his acceptance of man
is sealed by the sacraments of the Church. The young monk
could not bring himself to love a God like that ; he feared, he
even hated him. " When I looked for Christ," he said, " it
seemed to me as if I saw the devil."

Luther's development is largely a history of his enfranchise-
ment from the' Occamist theology. But even after he had freed
himself from the oppressive doctrines he bore lasting marks of
the apprenticeship in Occam's school. In 1515 we find him call-
ing these scholastics the " hog-doctors," but throughout life he
carried certain of their teachings with him. Occam — the
" modernist " — was the sharpest critic of the mediaeval Church,
and especially of the hierarchy. He said flatly that popes and
councils could err, and remembering this doubtless made the
break with Rome easier for Luther.

But taken as a whole the reading of scholastic philosophy
only deepened his perplexity and anguish of soul. He had to
win his own way to light, which came at last. Several of his
fellow monks helped him with counsel and comfort, especially
his spiritual director who sought to combat his doubts by giving
him orthodox literature. Of this man Luther speaks long after-
wards : —

I remember with what ardor and pleasure I read Athanasius^ dia-
logue on the Trinity durmg my first year in the cloister when my
monastic pedagogue at Erfurt, an excellent man and a true Christian
under the cursed cowl, gave me a copy of it made by himself.

This same wise old man pointed out to him that God was not

14 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

angry with him, but he with God, and emphasized the duty of
believing in the forgiveness of sins. This was the first comfort
he received.

Most of all he was helped by John Staupitz, since 1503 the
Vicar of the German province of Augustinians, and dean of the
faculty of theology at Wittenberg. With statesmanlike breadth
combining energy and tact, he constantly sought to purify, con-
solidate, and enlarge his order, but while prosecuting these com-
prehensive plans never forgot small chapters and young brothers
in need of help. His relations with Luther were so special that
some have proposed to regard his influence as the decisive
factor in the Reformer's development, but this view is hardly
justified by the known facts. With many expressions of grati-
tude from the young man to the elder we have his own sorrow-
ful statement that even Staupitz did not rightly understand
him. His superior, a mystic in doctrine, helped him not so much
by teaching as by loving him. The vicar was a man who under-
stood men, and it was due to his recommendation that Luther
received the call to Wittenberg.

The young monk was chiefly illumined by the perusal of the
Bible. The book was a very common one, there having been no
less than one hundred editions of the Latin Vulgate published
before 1500, as well as a number of German translations. The
rule of the Augustinians prescribed diligent reading of the
Scriptures, and Luther obeyed this regulation with joyous zeal,
in spite of the astonishment of Staupitz and discouragement on
the part of Dr. Usingen.

_^Next to the Bible, St. Augustine was the most helpful of all
the writers read by Luther. He began to know him at latest in
1508 ; a recent find has given us the very copy of Augustine's
works that he used, with the margins crammed full of notes.
According to these indications what impressed him most was
the saint's mysticism — his philosophy of God, the world, the
soul, the worthlessness of earthly life and the blessedness of the
life hid with God. These thoughts so cheered him that at times
he felt as if he was "among choirs of angels."

With all the helps that he received, it was years before he
found even the key of his solution. The letter to Braun of 1507

THE MONK 15

witnesses the downcast, trembling posture of his soul. At the
first mass he experienced torturing doubts: " When I came to
the words • thee, most merciful Father,' " he says, " the thought
that I had to speak to God without a mediator almost made me
flee like another Judas." a Chr «*s *.'«i? /

It was one day at Wittenberg in 1508 or 1509, as he was sit-
ting in his cell in a little tower, that his life message came to
him, and with it the first assurance of permanent comfort and
peace. He was reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and came
to the verse (i, 17) " The just shall live by faith." Ponder-
ing this, it came to him that it was not, as he had been taught,
by man's own works that he was redeemed, but by faith in
God and the Saviour. Justification by faith has been rightly
selected as the cardinal doctrine of the Lutheran theology ; he
himself recognized in it the corner-stone of his whole life.

Of course Luther's development was not completed at once.
Even after the master-key had been found, the long struggle
continued, and other factors entered in to modify and enrich his
character. He entered the monastery to save his soul, and the
struggle for peace took twelve long years before the monk was
ripe for the great deeds he was called on to perform. No one
can get even an idea of what the struggle cost him save by read-
ing after him the folios and quartos he perused, and trying to fol-
low him in all that tangled labyrinth. And yet his development
was perfectly normal and even. That his health suffered some-
what from asceticism is undoubtedly true, but there were no
morbid symptoms in his conversion. Comparing it to that of fr*J
other famous Christians, there were no visions such as Loyola ^j'A^
saw, and no moral breakdown such as that of Augustine. In
those years of hardship, meditation, study, and thought, he laid
the foundations of that adamantine character which stood un-
shaken amidst a tempest that rocked Europe to its base.

CHAPTER III

THE JOURNEY TO ROME. OCTOBER, 1510-FEBRUARY, 1511

Work at Erfurt was interrupted by one of the most import-
ant and interesting events in Luther's early career, the journey
to Rome. As nearly all known about this trip comes from re-
miniscences, of many years afterwards, there is a good deal that
is obscure. Scholars are divided on a number of points con-
nected with the event, among others on the time at which it
took place. The probability points to the date given at the head
of this chapter, but this is far from certain ; many students
think the trip to Rome was at the same season a year later, and
a few find still other dates. The Reformer in his table-talk places
it now in one year, now in another, though the majority of re-
ferences give 1510. Many other points are also unsettled ; the
account in this chapter follows what seems to me the greatest
probability and the best authority.

The cause of the trip is connected with the history of the
Augustinian order. As previously stated, when Proles carried
through his reform of 1473-1475 all the cloisters did not
adhere to the movement. Staupitz was anxious to complete
the work of his predecessor by uniting all the chapters again,
and some years after he was elected vicar of the Augustinian
Observants in 1503, the opportunity arrived. Securing the
interest of the general of the order at Rome, and of the Curia,
on June 26, 1510, he was appointed provincial of the whole
Saxon province, with authority to force the non-observant clois-
ters into the reformed congregation. Several of these chapters,
who felt themselves aggrieved, decided to appeal to Rome, and
their motion was supported by some of the cloisters under
Staupitz's jurisdiction, including Erfurt. The disaffected chose
as their agent John von Mecheln of Nuremberg, and with him
went Martin Luther.

It is probable that the latter had little or nothing to do with

THE JOURNEY TO ROME 17

the business in hand. At any rate he never mentions it. More-
over, his warm relations with Staupitz make it unlikely that he
would be willing to take a decided part against him. The laws
of the order required that the brothers should always travel
two and two, and he was simply the soclus itinerarius of John
von Mecheln. He grasped eagerly at the opportunity to visit
the Eternal City ; indeed, he once stated that the purpose of
his going was to make a general confession of all his sins and
to receive absolution.

The brothers set out in October, not cheerfully talking side
by side, but walking silently in single file. Their itinerary is
not known ; there were various routes used by pilgrims, and it
is impossible to judge much from Luther's own vague mention
of places. When they arrived in Italy, they discovered the in-
sidious quality of the climate, as the following incident re-
lates : —

On the journey to Rome the brother with whom I was travelling
and I were very tired one night and slept with open windows until
about six o'clock. When we awoke, our heads were full of vapors, so
that we could only go four or five miles that day, tormented by thirst
and yet sickened by the wine and desiring only the water which is
deadly there. At length we were refreshed by two pomegranates with
which excellent fruit God saved our lives.

The journey took the brothers through Florence, rich then
as now with the art treasures which are the delight and wonder
of the world. It is characteristic of Luther, who says very little
about the painting and sculpture he saw, that he should have
carefully visited the hospitals. The principal one was the Spe-
dale di Santa Maria Nuova, just back of the cathedral, founded
by Portinari, the father of Dante's Beatrice. Not far from it is
the foundling hospital, the Spedale degli Innocenti, founded in
the fifteenth century and richly decorated with medallions by
Andrea della Robbia. The pilgrim related his experience
thus : —

The hospitals of the Italians are built like the palaces, supplied with
the best food and drink, and tended by diligent servants and skilful
physicians. The painted bedsteads are covered with clean linen. When

18 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

a patient is brought in, his clothes are taken off and given to a notary to
keep honestly. Then they put a white bed-gown on him and lay him be-
tween the clean sheets of the beautifully painted bed, and two physi-
cians are brought at once. Servants fetch food and drink in clean
glass vessels, and do not touch the food even with a finger, but offer
it to the patient on a tray. Honorable matrons, veiled, serve the poor
all day long without making their names known, and at evening re-
turn home. These carefully tended hospitals I saw at Florence. They
also have foundling asylums, where children are well sheltered and
nourished and taught ; they are all dressed in uniform and most pater-
nally provided for.

Continuing the trip south, the brothers finally caught sight
of Rome. The emotions of the young man were overpowering ;
he fell on his face and cried: " Hail, holy Rome ! "

The month of December was spent here. While his com-
panion did the business of the order, Luther spent the time
seeing the sights. There was then a guide-book, the so-called
Mirabilia Romae, which had been published as a block-book
before the days of movable types. That Luther used it is prob-
able from parallels found in the table-talk, and Professor
Hausrath has constructed his whole visit from this hint, just
as one might imagine what a modern tourist saw by consulting
Baedeker. What impressed him most of all the sights were
the remains of classical antiquity, the Coliseum, the baths, the
Pantheon. He also speaks of the catacombs of Calixtus and of
some of the churches.

" I was a foolish pilgrim," says he, "and believed all that
I was told." He visited all the shrines to take advantage of the
indulgences granted to pious worshippers, and even went so
far as to wish that his parents were dead that he might get
their souls out of purgatory, for which charitable work so
many opportunities offered. One of the most celebrated shrines
of the Holy City is the chapel Sancta Sanctorum at the eastern
end of the Piazza di San Giovanni, in which was, and still is,
the flight of twenty-eight steps, taken, as the Romans fabled,
from the judgment hall of Pilate in Jerusalem. Leo IV had
granted an indulgence of nine years for every step climbed by
the pilgrim on his knees while saying the appointed prayers.

THE JOURNEY TO ROME 19

If one may trust the story which Luther's son Paul remem-
bered hearing his father tell,1 he started climbing these stairs
and praying, but suddenly remembered the verse in Romans,
" The just shall live by faith," arose and descended.

Luther could not fail to be shocked by many things he saw.
At the time they did not shake his faith in the Church, nor his
allegiance to the Pope, but when the breach came in after
years his heart was hardened by the remembrance of the visit.
He could never have attacked Rome so vigorously and suc-
cessfully in 1520 had it not been for what he saw in 1510. He
often refers to it in words like these : —

Rome is a harlot. I would not take a thousand gulden not to
have seen it, for I never would have believed the true state of affairs
from what other people told me, had I not seen it myself. The
Italians mocked us for being pious monks, for they hold Christians
fools. They say six or seven masses in the time it takes me to say
one, for they take money for it and I do not. The only crime in
Italy is poverty. They still punish homicide and theft a little, for
they have to, but no other sin is too gross for them. . . .

So great and bold is Roman impiety that neither God nor man,
neither sin nor shame, is feared. All good men who have seen Rome
bear witness to this ; all bad ones come back worse than before.

The return journey took about seven weeks. Passing through
Milan, Luther was surprised to find priests who claimed not
to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope, for they followed
St. Ambrose. His eyes were open to the beauty and fertility
of the Lombard plains. He arrived at Erfurt in February.

It is not without interest to note another trip, though one
of infinitely less importance than the Italian journey, taken by
Luther in his monastic days. This was to Cologne, where he
saw the relics of the three kings. He never forgot the wine
he drank in this city, which he said was the best he ever tasted.2

1 This celebrated story was first published in its original form in 1903. Kost-
lin-Kawerau, i, 749. Paul was only eleven years old when the story was told (in
1544) and he wrote it down thirty-eight years later.

2 Weimar edition, xxxiv, i, 22, and note at end of volume.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROFESSOR. 1512-1517

Wittenberg is situated on the banks of the Elbe about
halfway between Leipsic and Berlin. The broad and winding
river is not at this point navigable. The country is flat, the
soil sandy and poor. Toward the end of the fifteenth century
Wittenberg was a mere hamlet, containing about three hun-
dred and fifty low, ugly wooden houses, with an old church
and a town hall. To explain its rise to prominence as a uni-
versity town and military post a short digression on contem-
porary history is necessary — an explanation which will also
serve to clear up the matter of the two Saxonys, a standing
puzzle to foreigners who read German history.

The treaty of Leipsic, August, 1485, divided the lands of the
house of Wettin forever into two parts. The so-called u Elect-
oral District " (Kurkreis) of which Wittenberg was the centre,
together with some territory to the southward including Eise-
nach, Weimar, and Coburg, was given to the elder brother,
Ernest, with the title of Elector of Saxony. The younger,
Albert, who was called Duke of Saxony, obtained the smaller
but better portion of the land, including the two cities of
Leipsic and Dresden with the surrounding country.

Frederic, surnamed the Wise, who became Elector of Saxony
in 1486, at once started to replenish his diminished resources.
He chose Wittenberg as a sort of capital of his northern terri-
tory — usually himself residing at Altenburg in the south. He
began immediately to ornament the town with public build-
ings, including a castle and a church, for the decoration of
which he employed Albert Diirer, the Nuremberg painter. In
1502 he founded a university, in order that his subjects might
not have to go to Leipsic, belonging to his cousin, or to Erfurt,
under the jurisdiction of the Elector of Mayence. He ap-
pointed Staupitz first dean of the faculty of theology, intending

THE PROFESSOR 21

that most of the professors should be monks of the Augustinian
order, which had a chapter at Wittenberg. Staupitz entered
into the work with zeal ; he rebuilt and enlarged the Black
Cloister (as the monastery was called, from the popular name
of the Augustinians as Black Monks), began to lecture on the
Bible, and gathered around him some young men whom he in-
tended to train to fill positions as teachers.

The one in whom he had most confidence was Martin Luther.
It was at his recommendation that the young brother had been
made instructor in philosophy during the year 1508-09, and it
was also at his recommendation that Martin was again called
in the summer of 1511 to be professor of divinity. The vicar
was anxious to retire and wished the younger man to take his
own place. In order to do this a degree of doctor was consid-
ered necessary, to which, at first, Luther was averse. Many
years later he told the following story, so characteristic of the
vicar's gentle humor : —

Dr. Staupitz said to me one day as we were sitting under the pear-
tree still standing in the court, " You should take the degree of doctor
so as to have something to do." ... I objected that my strength was
already used up, and that I could not long survive the duties imposed
on me by a professorship. He answered : " Do you not know that the
Lord has a great deal of business to attend to, in which he needs the
assistance of clever people ? If you should die, you might be his coun-
sellor."

Such argument could not be withstood, and accordingly
October 18, 1512, was set aside for Luther to take the highest
degree in theology, that of doctor in divinity. His invitation
to his brothers at Erfurt to attend the ceremony is interesting,
both because of the matter it contains, and because of its per-
fect self-possession in contrast to the previous letters.

TO THE PRIOR ANDREW LOHR AND THE CONVENT OF
AUGUSTINIANS AT ERFURT

Wittenberg, September 22, 1512.
Greeting in the Lord ! "Reverend, venerable and dear Fathers ! Be-
hold the day of St. Luke is at hand, on which, in obedience to you
and to our reverend Vicar Staupitz, I shall take my examination in

22 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

theology in the hall of the university. ... I do not now accuse my-
self of unworthiness, lest I should seem to seek praise and honor by
my humility; God and my conscience know how worthy and how
grateful I am for this public honor. ... I beg that you will deign to
come and be present at the celebration, if convenient, for the glory
and honor of religion and especially of our chapter. . . .

After taking the degree, to which he seems to have been
thoroughly reconciled, Luther began to lecture on the Bible, a
practice which, he kept up all his life. The recent publication
of the marginal notes (1509-10) in some of the books he used,
and of his lectures on the Psalms (1513-15), on the Epistle
to the Romans (1515-16), and on the Book of Judges (1516),
together with the Commentary on Galatians, printed by Luther
himself in 1519 (from lectures given in 1516-17), gives us a
deep insight into his methods and results.

Glancing first at the more external qualities, these lectures
and notes evince extreme thoroughness — not a bad quality in
a professor, and one for which German professors have ever
been justly famous. He not only turned the pages of his books,
he read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested them. He
criticised his authors and with such acumen that two works
attributed to Augustine, the genuineness of which he first
disputed, have been proved by modern criticism' to be spurious.
He sought diligently for the best authorities and the most
recent books. In his Commentary on the Psalms he used the
edition of the French humanist Lef£vre d'Ltaples, published
in 1509. This author, "a little Luther," as Michelet ^ called
him, is a chief guide in the exegesis of the text. Next to him,
or perhaps one should say, ahead of him, the influence of Au-
gustine, and through him of the Neoplatonic school, is the most
important element. Comparing these lectures with the notes on
Lombard (1509-10), a considerable advance in freedom and
power is noticeable. The early work is stiff, formal, and timid ;
in the later, though the text and authorities are still followed
fairly closely, there is more freedom of treatment and more of
the subjective element. The new religious ideas, especially that
of justification by faith, can be plainly made out, and several
opinions which could find no room in the Catholic Church come

THE PROFESSOR 23

forward. In fact, as far as we can judge, it was in these lec-
tures, his first on the Bible, that Luther began to formulate
his peculiar theology.

In the summer semester of 1515, about May, Luther began
to lecture on Romans, continuing the course for about three
semesters. His principal guide, at first, was again the humanist
Lefevre, whose text of St. Paul's epistles had appeared in
1512. While Luther was still lecturing, in March, 1516, Eras-
mus' edition of the New Testament with a new Latin transla-
tion and notes came out, and was immediately procured by the
Wittenberg professor. From this time on, beginning, namely,
with the ninth chapter of Romans, Erasmus took the lead as
an exegetical authority. Not that the lecturer follows him
slavishly; he balances authorities, and occasionally disagrees
with all of them. Nevertheless we can hardly overestimate the
importance of the Greek Testament on the Reformer's thought ;
from this time on almost all of his important theological work
is founded on it, and of course on the material supplied by its
editor.

The Commentary on Romans is a great human document,
priceless for its biographical interest. So important is it in the
Jiistory of the author's thought that Father Denifle, who first
called attention to it,1 was inclined to date the commencement
of the Reformation from it. Though we cannot agree with him
in this, for, according to our reading of the sources, Luther had
attained his fundamental convictions in previous years, we must
assign immense importance to these lectures for the develop-
ment and perfection of these ideas. The care with which he
prepared the lectures is plain ; he laboriously annotated almost
every word of the text, and then wrote out, in a fair, legible
copy, the whole discourse. There is still some remnant of
medisevalism in the manner in which he explains the text in two
or three different ways, but through the old dress the modern
spirit shines forth. Luther was one of the first to show what

1 He knew it in some notes taken by students now in the Vatican archives.
The original manuscript, long supposed to be lost, was discovered but a few years
ago in the show-cases of the Royal Library at Berlin, and first published in 1908.
I have read a portion of it in manuscript.

24 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Paul really felt, thought, and taught, though some others, like
Lefevre and Colet, had preceded him by a few years in apply-
ing the new learning to the elucidation of Scripture. These
commentaries were and are valuable contributions to exegesis.

But they are far more ; they are living epistles from Brother
Martin's heart. His lofty ideas are taking shape, and what an
insight into his deep ponderings do such sentences as these
give : " We are partly sinners and partly just, but nothing if
not penitent, for repentance is the mean between sin and
righteousness " ; and again, " We are not called to ease but to
labor against our passions." Throughout the whole, the theo-
logical, practical, and moral interest is the dominant one. The
lecturer is even more interested in his own day than in Paul's.
With what solemn words does he arraign the princes and pre-
lates who oppress the poor and live only for luxury and pride !
How often does he refer to the events of the day, the Reuchlin
trial, the wars of Pope Julius, or of Duke George, or of the
Bishop of Brandenburg ! Again, in words which have a double
meaning for us who know their sequel, he blames the sellers
of indulgences who deceive the poor people, and "are cruel
beyond all cruelty, not freeing souls for charity, though they do
for money.'"

In this commentary can first be seen how far Luther is from
the doctrine taught him by his professors Trutvetter and Usin-
gen, the old philosophy of Aristotle and the schoolmen. Of
them he says : —

Wherefore it is mere madness for them to say that a man of his
own powers is able to love God above all things and to do the works
of the law in substance, if not literally, without grace. Fools ! Theo-
logians for swine ! According to them grace would not be necessary
save for a new requirement above the law. For if the law is fulfilled
by our own powers, as they say, then grace would not be necessary
for the fulfilment of the law, but only for a new exaction beyond the
law. Who can bear these sacrilegious opinions ?

It is from this high opinion of the function of grace that
Luther deduced the doctrine of determinism, which he carried
to the utmost lengths of logic.

These lectures also give a vivid idea of the author's reading

THF PROFESSOR £5

at the time. The humanists, especially Erasmus, are his favor-
ites. He often quotes, however, from the Fathers, either directly
or as he had learned to know them through textbooks and
compendiums. Moreover, he is interesting. Similes, illustra-
tions, examples from current events, apt translation into Ger-
man, with careful summaries at the end of each subject, made
the lectures a wide departure from the ordinary. The students
flocked, to them with enthusiasm.

Luther's work at the university was so successful that within
a few years he was able to carry through a complete reform of
the whole curriculum. The bondage of the old-fashioned pro-
fessors to Aristotle has already been described in connection
with Martin's education at Erfurt. The humanists, eager for
the cultivation of the classics, rebelled against the reign of the
Stagirite, and had been partly successful in dethroning him.
Luther was in thorough sympathy with them, but his motive
was different ; he objected to the study of that u cursed heathen *
(verdammter Heide), because his ethics were not Christian and
his philosophy not Pauline. This dislike, noticeable as early as
1510, grew until, on September 4, 1517, Luther published
ninety-seven theses calling into question the value of Aristotle's
works as textbooks. Every one is familiar with the Ninety-five
Theses against indulgences published the following month, but
only specialists know of this Disputation against Scholastic
Theology. And yet Luther, who did not think the theses on/
indulgences worth publishing, printed this protest against Aris-
totle and his followers, and sent it around to numerous friends
for opinions. Among the theses the forty-first calls Aristotle's
Ethics bad and inimical to grace, the fifty-first expresses the
well-founded suspicion that the Latin translations used in the
university do not give his exact sense, and the fifty- second
states that it would be a good thing if he who first started the
question of nominalism and realism had never been born.
Luther was especially anxious to have his opinions known to
his old professors at Erfurt, who were strong adherents of the
Greek philosopher, and accordingly sent the theses with this
letter.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO JOHN LANG AT ERFURT

Wittenberg, February 8, 1517.
Greeting. I enclose a letter, dear Father, for the excellent Trut-
vetter, containing propositions directed against logic, philosophy, and
theology, i. e., slander and malediction of Aristotle, Porphyry,1 and
the Sentences, the wretched studies of our age. The men who interpret
them are bound to keep silence, not for five years, as did the Pythago-
reans, but for ever and ever, like the dead ; 2 they must believe all,
obey always ; nor may they ever, even for practice in argument, skir-
mish with their master, nor mutter a syllable against him. What will
they not believe who have credited that ridiculous and injurious
blasphemer Aristotle ? His propositions are so absurd that an ass or
a stone would cry out at them. . . . My soul longs for nothing so
ardently as to expose and publicly shame that Greek buffoon, who like
a spectre has befooled the Church. ... If Aristotle had not lived in
the flesh I should not hesitate to call him a devil. The greatest part of
my cross is to be forced to see brothers with brilliant minds, born for
useful studies, compelled to spend their lives and waste their labor in
these follies. The universities do not cease to condemn good books and
publish bad ones, or rather talk in their sleep about those already
published. . . .

Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian.

The professor's efforts to rid his own university of Aristotle
were completely successful, as on May 18, 1517, he wrote
Lang : —

Our theology and St. Augustine prosper and reign here, by God's
help. Aristotle is gradually tottering to a fall from which he will
hardly rise again, and the lectures on the Sentences are wonderfully
disrelished. No professor can hope for students unless he offers courses
in the new theology, that is on the Bible or St. Augustine or some other
ecclesiastical authority.

While teaching, Luther continued his own studies. Hebrew
he had already begun to learn at Erfurt, with the help of

1 Porphyry, born 233 A.D., started the debate on the reality of individuals and
species which divided the Middle Ages. Cf. p. 6.

2 An oath never to contradict Aristotle was actually administered in the Italian
universities. P. Monnier: Le Quattrocento (Paris, 1908), ii, 76.

THE PROFESSOR 27

Reuchlin's new grammar-dictionary. There were no courses in
Greek at either Erfurt or Wittenberg, but he began to study-
it under the private tuition of his friend Lang, who taught at
Wittenberg for three years from 1513 to 1516. Besides these
linguistic pursuits he continued his reading in mediaeval theo-
logians, — Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventura, Gerson, and
Gerhard Zerbolt of Ziitphen.

Toward the end of 1515 or early in 1516 he became ac-
quainted with a school of German mystics which had an import-
ant influence on his development. The leader of this movement
had been Tauler, whose sermons, in an edition of 1508, Luther
bought and annotated in his own careful way. He was still more
impressed by a manuscript of one of this school known as " the
Frankfurter," a work to which the young professor gave the
name of " A German Theology," when he edited it in an incom-
plete form in 1516 (his first publication) and fully in 1518. In
the preface he says there is no better book, after the Bible and
Augustine, and none in which one may better learn the nature
of " God, Christ, man, and all things." He warns the reader not
to be repelled by the archaic German, and the influence of this
rough, but pure old speech, has been noted on his own style.

What attracted Luther to the mystics was their doctrine of
the necessity of a spiritual rebirth of anguish and despair before
a man could approach the felicity of union with God. Just as
Christ had gone through pain to blessedness, so, they taught,
man must experience woe before he can appreciate happiness.
A person who seeks God with all his heart is left by him for a
time in doubt and distraction, that God may thereby teach him
his absolute dependence on him. This was balm to the soul of
one who had been at a loss to explain the long period of suffer-
ing through which he had just come ; now he felt sure that he
had not gone astray, but that even in prqfundis God had loved
and watched over him.

The young professor's work was not confined to the class-
room. Soon after his transfer to Wittenberg he began to preach,
at first to the brothers in the convent, and then in the tiny, barn-
like chapel at that time standing near the cloister. He was at
first very timid about it, but gradually developed a wonderful

28 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

homiletic gift. Even his earliest addresses are full of fresh
earnestness and have some touches of uncommon power. The
first extant sermon, probably preached on Whitsunday, 1514,
takes the text from the golden rule (Matthew vii, 12). The
preacher begins by classifying goods as wholly external, — such
as money, houses, and wives; partly external and partly in-
ternal, — health and beauty ; and wholly internal, — wisdom,
virtue, charity, and faith. He then shows how a man may help
or hurt his neighbor in any of these goods. He asks if it is
enough to abstain from hurting our fellow men, and answers by
inquiring if we should be satisfied if all that they ever did for
us was to let us alone. We must give to others, teach them,
incite them, and help them to do right even as we want them to
do unto us. Christ judged the wicked servant, not for wasting
his talent, but for letting it lie idle ; he condemned the persons
at his tribunal, not for despoiling him, but because when he
was hungry they gave him no meat. Thus it will be with us if
we do not help each other to the utmost of our ability.

So I might go on with other sermons, and show how simple,
direct, interesting, moral, and saintly they are. They reveal the
heart of young Luther striving with all his might to be the best
and do the best that was in him. What flashes of revelation there
are now and then, as in the comment on John iii, 16 (God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son) — " There
is a wonderful emphasis and propriety in these words, as is the
wont of the Holy Spirit ! "

In both sermons and lectures many a trenchant word against
spiritual wickedness in high places remind one that the monk
was already a reformer. Many of the abuses he later attacked
are scored or glanced at in these early years. He says, for
example, that the Canon Law needs a thorough cleansing ; he
speaks against fasts, ceremonies, and pilgrimages. He criticizes
the hardness and tyranny of the princes, the coarseness of the
priests, the arrogance of the monks, the ignorance of indulgence-
preachers, the superstition of religious foundations, the laziness
of workmen, and the irreligion and greed of lawyers. Sometimes
he rebukes by name or clearly indicates persons in high stations,
among them the late Pope Julius II, the Bishop of Strassburg,

THE PROFESSOR 29

Duke George of Albertine Saxony, and his own sovereign, the
Elector.

Of more than common interest, as showing Luther's general
attitude toward the Church, is his opinion on a cause celebre of
that day, the trial for heresy of John Reuchlin. This learned
man's refusal to participate in the scheme of a converted Jew
to burn all Hebrew books except the Old Testament was made
the ground of an action against him by the Dominicans of Co-
logne, among whom the most conspicuous was Hochstratten,
aided by the humanist Ortuin Gratius. The trial, which lasted
from 1510 to 1516, excited the interest of the whole of Europe.
The monks and obscurantists sided with the inquisitors, the
humanists, all but Ortuin, with Reuchlin. The contest was car-
ried on by a hundred pens, and gave rise to a great satire
— the Epistles of Obscure Men. This work, most of which
was written by Crotus Rubeanus, in the form of a series of letters
addressed to Ortuin Gratius by poor monks, ridicules the bad
Latin, ignorance, gullibility, and superstition of the theologians.

Luther, though a monk, sided with the progressive party
against the inquisitors. His letters on the subject are written to
a man who was, throughout life, one of his best friends, George
Burkhardt of Spalt. Spalatin, as he was always called, was of the
same age as his friend, whom he probably came to know first
in 1512, when he was tutor to some young princes at Wittenberg.
About 1514 he was appointed chaplain and private secretary to
Frederic the Wise, after which he was rarely at Wittenberg.
Of the voluminous correspondence of the two friends about four
hundred and fifty of Luther's letters to him have survived.
Among the first of these are two on the Reuchlin trial : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

Wittenberg (February, 1514).
Peace be with you, reverend Spalatin ! Brother John Lang has
asked me what I think of the innocent and learned Reuchlin and
whether he is, as his prosecutors of Cologne allege, in danger of
heresy. You know that I greatly esteem and like the man, and per-
haps my judgment will therefore be suspected, bat my opinion is that
in all his writings there is absolutely nothing dangerous.

30 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

I greatly wonder at the men of Cologne ferreting out such an ob-
scure point, worse tangled than the Gordian knot, though the case is
really as plain as day. . . . What shall I say ? That they are trying
to cast out Beelzebub but not by the finger of God. I often regret and
deplore that we Christians are wise abroad and fools at home. A
hundred times worse blasphemies than this exist in the very streets of
Jerusalem, and the high places are filled with spiritual idols. We
ought to show our superabundant zeal in removing these offences,
which are our real, intestine enemies, instead of abandoning all that is
really urgent and turning to foreign matters, under the inspiration of
the devil, who intends that we shall neglect our own business without
helping others. . . .

Your brother,

Martin Luther.

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

Wittenberg, August 5, 1514.

Greeting. Hitherto, most learned Spalatin, I considered that poet-
aster of Cologne, Ortuin Gratius, simply an ass. But you see he has
turned out a dog, or rather a ravening wolf in sheep's clothing, if not
indeed a crocodile, as you quite properly suggest. I really believe he
has felt his own asininity (if you allow the word) since our Reuchlin
has pointed it out, but that he thinks he can shake it off and put
on the lion's majesty. The change is too much for him ; presto ! he
remains a wolf or crocodile, for to turn into a lion is beyond his
power.

Good Heavens ! How can I express my feelings ? From the ex-,
ample of this fellow alone we may form the truest, sanest, and justest
estimate possible of all who have ever written or now write, or will
write from envy. The most insane of all passions is that envy which
ardently desires to hurt but has not the power. . . .

This little Ortuin gets together a lot of ridiculous, contradictory,
painful, pitiful propositions, twisting the words and meaning of in-
nocent Reuchlin, only to increase the penalty of his own blindness and
obstinacy of heart. . • .

In addition to preaching and teaching, Luther had numerous
duties connected with his order, in which he was rapidly rising
to a leading position. In May, 1515, he was elected vicar of
the district, a responsible position involving the superintend-
ence of eleven cloisters. How seriously he took his duties is

THE PROFESSOR 31

shown by his letters to priors of monasteries under his charge.
Two of them especially reveal the writer's deep spiritual life
at the time when he was most under the influence Of the mys-
tics. The first is conceived in the spirit of Paul's epistle to
Philemon.

TO JOHN BERCKEN, AUGUSTINIAN PRIOR AT MAYENCE

Dresden, May 1, 1516.

Greeting in the Lord ! Reverend and excellent Father Prior ! — I
am grieved to learn that there is with your Reverence one of my
brothers, a certain George Baumgartner, of our convent at Dresden,
and that, alas ! he sought refuge with you in a shameful manner, and
for a shameful cause. I thank your faith and duty for receiving him
and thus bringing his shame to an end. That lost sheep is mine, he
belongs to me ; it is mine to seek him, and, if it please the Lord Jesus,
to bring him back. Wherefore I pray your Reverence, by our com-
mon faith in Christ and by our common Augustinian vow, to send
him to me in dutiful charity either at Dresden or at Wittenberg, or
rather to persuade him lovingly and gently to come of his own ac-
cord. I shall receive him with open arms ; only let him come ; he has
no cause to fear my displeasure.

I know, I know that scandals must arise. It is no miracle that
a man should fall, but it is a miracle that he should rise and stand.
Peter fell, that he might know that he was a man ; to-day the cedars
of Lebanon, touching the sky with their tops, fall down. Wonder of
wonders, even an angel fell from heaven and man in paradise ! What
wonder is it, then, that a reed be shaken by the wind and a smoking
flax be quenched ? May the Lord Jesus teach you and use you and
perfect you in every good work. Amen. Farewell.

Brother Martin Luther,
Professor of theology and Augustinian Vicar of the
district of Meissen and Thuringia.

TO MICHAEL DRESSEL, AUGUSTINIAN PRIOR AT NEUSTADT

Wittenberg, June 22, 1516.

. . . You seek peace and ensue it, but in the wrong way, for you look

to what the world gives, not to what Christ gives. Know you not, dear

Father, that God is so wonderful among his people that he has placed

his peace in the midst of no peace, that is, in the midst of all trial, as

32 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

he says : Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies ? It is not that
man, therefore, whom no one disturbs, who has peace, — which is,
indeed, the peace of the world, — but he whom all men and all things
harass and who yet bears all quietly with joy. You say with Israel :
" Peace, peace," and there is no peace ; say rather with Christ, "Cross,
cross," and there is no cross. For the cross ceases to be a cross
as soon as you say joyfully : u Blessed cross, there is no tree like
you." . . .

Seek peace and you will find it, but seek only to bear trials with
joy as if they were holy relics. . . .

It may be imagined that such varied occupations kept Luther
busy. Of his work he gives a lively account in a letter to his
recent colleague and instructor in Greek : —

TO JOHN LANG AT EKFURT

(Wittenberg,) October 26, 1516.

Greeting. I need a couple of amanuenses or secretaries, as I do
almost nothing the live-long day but write letters. 1 do not know
whether on that account I am always repeating myself, but you can
judge. I am convent preacher, the reader at meals, am asked to de-
liver a sermon daily in the parish church, am district vicar (that is
eleven times prior), business manager of our fish-farm at Litzkau,
attorney in our case versus the Herzbergers now pending at Torgau,1
lecturer on St. Paul, assistant lecturer on the Psalter, besides having
my correspondence, which, as I said, occupies most of my time. I
seldom have leisure to discharge the canonical services, to say nothing
of attending to my own temptations with the world, the flesh and the
devil. You see how idle I am !

I think you must already have my answer about Brother John
Metzel, but I will see what I can do. How in the world do you think
I can get places for your epicures and sybarites ? If you have brought
them up in this pernicious way of life you ought to support them in
the same pernicious style. I have enough useless brothers on all sides
— if, indeed, any can be called useless to a patient soul. I have per-
suaded myself that the useless are the most useful of all — so you can
have them a while longer. . . .

You write me that yesterday you began to lecture on the second

♦ l On the incorporation of the parish church at Herzberg with the local Augus-
tinian chapter.

THE PROFESSOR 83

book of Sentences. I begin to-morrow to lecture on Galatians, though
I fear the plague will not allow me to finish the course. The plague
takes off two or at most three in one day, and that not every day. A
son of the smith who lives opposite was well yesterday and is buried
to-day, and another son lies ill. The epidemic began rather severely
and suddenly in the latter part of the summer. You would per-
suade Bernhardi and me to flee to you, but shall I flee ? I hope the
world will not come to an end when Brother Martin does. I shall
send the brothers away if the plague gets worse ; I am stationed here
and may not flee because of my vow of obedience, until the same
authority which now commands me to stay shall command me to go.
Not that I do not fear the plague (for I am not the Apostle Paul, but
only a lecturer on him), but I hope the Lord will deliver me from my
fear.

How great is the contrast between this letter and that writ-
ten ten years before ! The shy boy has become a man of un-
usual power, universally respected and trusted. Indeed, he had
already attracted the notice of his sovereign, the Elector Fred-
eric. This prince, who enjoyed a great and deserved reputa-
tion for wisdom, was a pious man according to mediaeval
standards. He had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and
brought back a large collection of relics to which he kept adding
from time to time. He built the Castle Church at Wittenberg,
1493-1499, to keep these sacred objects of which by 1505 he
had accumulated 5005, graced with enormous indulgences,
reckoned, according to the scale of measurement adopted, as
equivalent to 1443 years of purgatory. In addition to this pro-
vision for his future life, Frederic had ten thousand masses said
yearly in Saxon churches for the benefit of his soul.

Luther had now come to regard such things as superfluous
and wrong, and consequently judged his sovereign severely for
superstition, as is shown in the next letter written to answer
Spalatin's request for his advice about the proposed appoint-
ment of Staupitz to a bishopric : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBTJRG

Wittenberg, June 8, 1516.
. . . . I by no means wish that the reverend father should receive the
appointment simply because it pleases the Elector to give it him. Many

34 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

things please your elector, and appear glorious in his eyes, which dis-
please God and are base. I do not deny that the Prince is of all most
wise in worldly matters, but in those which pertain to God and salva-
tion I think he is seven times blind, as is your friend Pf effinger.1 I do
not say this privily as a slanderer, nor do I wish that you should in
any way conceal it ; when the opportunity comes I am ready to say it
to both of them.

Dear Spalatin, these are not such happy times that it is blessed, or
even not most miserable to be a bishop — that is to carouse and prac-
tise the vices of Sodom and Rome. You will clearly understand this
if you compare the bishops of our age with those of ancient times.
The best of modern prelates wage foreign wars with all the power of
artillery, or build up their private fortunes, a hell of avarice. And al-
though Staupitz is most averse from such wickedness, yet would you,
with your confidence in him, force him to become involved in the
whirlpools and racking tempests of episcopal cares, when chance, or
rather fate, urges him on any way ? . . .

Staupitz did not get the appointment, and about a year later
fell into such disfavor with his sovereign that Luther had to
intercede for him. The letter in which he does so has an uncom-
mon interest as indicating how free the Wittenberg professor
felt to remonstrate with his prince on matters of state : — •

TO THE ELECTOR FREDERIC OF SAXONY AT ALTENBURG

Wittenberg, November, 1517.

Most gracious Lord and Prince ! As your Grace promised me a
gown some time ago, I beg to remind your Grace of the same. Please
let Pf effinger settle it with a deed and not with promises — he can
spin mighty good yarns but no cloth comes from them.

I have learned that your Grace is offended at Dr. Staupitz, our
dear and worthy father, for some reason or other. When he was here
on the way to see your Grace at Torgau, I talked with him and showed
him that I was sorry your Grace should take umbrage, and after a
long conversation could only find that he held your Grace in his heart.
. . . Wherefore, most gracious Lord, I beg you, as he several times
asked me to do, that you would consider all the love and loyalty you
have so often found in him.

My gracious Lord, let me now show my devotion to you and deserve

1 State treasurer and receiver-general of taxes.

THE PROFESSOR 35

my new gown. I have heard that at the expiration of the present im-
post your Grace intends to collect another and perhaps a heavier one.
If you will not despise the prayer of a poor beggar, I ask you for
God's sake not to do this. For it heartily distresses me and many who
love you, that this tax has of late robbed you of much good fame and
favor. God has blessed you with high intelligence in these matters, to
see further than I or perhaps any of your subjects, but it may well be
that God ordains it so that at times a great mind may be directed by
a lesser one, so that no one may trust himself but only God our Lord.
May he keep your Grace in health to govern us well and afterwards
may he grant your soul salvation. Amen.

Your Grace's obedient chaplain,

Da. Mabtin Luther.

CHAPTER V

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY. 1517-1519

Notwithstanding Luther's severe criticism of the Elector
for venerating relics, and notwithstanding his despondent esti-
mate of spiritual wickedness in high places, he was, as yet, a
true son of the Church. In attacking a flagrant ecclesiastical
abuse, the indulgence trade, he did not intend to raise the
standard of revolt, nor did he do so until forced, gradually if
rapidly, by the authorities of the Church herself, into irrecon-
cilable opposition. In order to understand his protest against
indulgences, it is necessary to glance at the history of this
institution.

According to the theory of the Roman Catholic Church, for-
giveness is imparted to sinners in absolution after confession,
by which the penitent is freed from guilt and eternal punish-
ment in hell, but still remains liable to a milder punishment to
be undergone in this life as penance, or in purgatory. The prac-
tice had arisen in the early Church of commuting this penance
(not the pains of purgatory) in consideration of a good work
such as a pilgrimage or a contribution to pious purpose. This
was the seed of the indulgence which would never have grown
to its later enormous proportions had it not been for the cru-
sades. Mohammed promised his followers paradise if they fell in
battle against unbelievers, but Christian warriors were at first
without this comforting assurance. Their faith was not long left
in doubt, however, for as early as 855 Leo IV promised heaven
to the Franks who died fighting the Moslems. A quarter of a
century later John VIII proclaimed absolution for all sins and
remission of all penalties to soldiers in the holy war, and from
this time on the " crusade indulgence " became a regular means
of recruiting, used, for example, by Leo IX in 1052 and by
Urban II in 1095. By this time the practice had grown up of
regarding an indulgence as a remission not only of penance

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 87

but of the pains of purgatory. The means which had proved
successful in getting soldiers for the crusade were first used in
1145 or 1146 to get money for the same end — pardon being
assured to those who gave enough to fit out one soldier on the
same terms as if they had gone themselves.

When the crusades ceased, in the thirteenth century, in-
dulgences did not fall into desuetude. At the jubilee of Pope
Boniface VIII in 1300 a plenary indulgence was granted to all
who made a pilgrimage to Rome. The Pope reaped such an
enormous harvest from the gifts of these pilgrims that he saw
fit to employ similar means at frequent intervals, and soon ex-
tended the same privileges as were granted to pilgrims to all
who contributed for some pious purpose at their own homes.
Agents were sent out to sell these pardons, and were given
power to confess and absolve, so that by 1393 Boniface IX was
able to announce complete remission of both guilt and penalty
to the purchasers of his letters.

Having assumed the right to free living men from future
punishment, it was but a step for the popes to proclaim that they
had the power to deliver the souls of the dead from purgatory.
The existence of this power was an open question until decided
by Calixtus III in 1457, but full use of the faculty was not
made until twenty years later, after which it became of all
branches of the indulgence trade the most profitable.

The practice of the Church had become well established
before a theory was framed to justify it. This was done most
successfully by Alexander of Hales in the thirteenth century,
who discovered the treasury of the Church (thesaurus meritorum
or thesaurus indulgentiarum) consisting of the merits of Christ
and the saints which the Pope, as head of the Church, could
apply as a sort of a credit to whom he chose. This doctrine, so
far as it applied to living men, received the sanction of Clem-
ent VI in 1343 and became a part of the Canon Law, but the
popes usually claimed to free the souls of the dead from purga-
tory simply by prayer. The mere dictum of the Supreme
Pontiff did not at that time absolutely establish a dogma. A
powerful party in the Church held that a council was the su-
preme authority in matters of faith, and it will be remembered

38 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

that the infallibility of the Pope was not made a dogma until
1870. Luther was therefore not accused of heresy for his asser-
tions regarding indulgences for the dead.

It was not so much the theory of the Church that excited his
indignation as it was the practices of some of her agents. They
encouraged the common man to believe that the purchase of
a papal pardon would assure him impunity without any real re-
pentance on his part. Moreover, whatever the theoretical worth
of indulgences, the motive of their sale was notoriously the
greed of unscrupulous ecclesiastics. The "holy trade" as it was
called had become so thoroughly commercialized by 1500 that
a banking house, the Fuggers of Augsburg, were the direct
agents of the Curia in Germany. In return for their services in
forwarding the Pope's bulls, and in hiring sellers of pardons,
this wealthy house made a secret agreement in 1507 by which
it received one third of the total profits of the trade, and in 1514
formally took over the whole management of the business in
return for the modest commission of one half the net receipts.
Naturally not a word was said by the preachers to the people
as to the destination of so large a portion of their money, but
enough was known to make many men regard indulgences as an
open scandal.

The history of the particular trade attacked by Luther is one
of special infamy. Albert of Brandenburg, a prince of the en-
terprising house of Hohenzollern, was bred to the Church and
rapidly rose by political influence to1 the highest ecclesiastical
position in Germany. In 1513 he was elected, at the age of
twenty-three, Archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of
the bishopric of Halberstadt, — an uncanonical accumulation
of sees confirmed by the Pope in return for a large payment.
Hardly had Albert paid this before he was elected Archbishop
and Elector of Mayence and Primate of Germany (March 9,
1514). Ashe was not yet of canonical age to possess even one
bishopric, not to mention three of the -greatest in the Empire,
the Pope refused to confirm his nomination except for an
enormous sum. The Curia at first demanded twelve thousand
ducats for the twelve apostles, Albert offered seven for the seven
deadly sins. The average between apostles and sins was struck

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 39

at ten thousand ducats, or fifty thousand dollars, a sum equal
in purchasing power to near a million to-day. Albert borrowed
this, too, from the Fuggers, and was accordingly confirmed on
August 15, 1514.

In order to allow the new prelate to recoup himself, Leo
obligingly declared an indulgence for the benefit of St. Peter's
Church, to run eight years from March 31, 1515. By this trans-
action, one of the most disgraceful in the history of the papacy,
as well as in that of the house of Brandenburg, the Curia made
a vast sum. Albert did not come off so well. First, a number of
princes, including the rulers of both Saxony s, forbade the trade
in their dominions, and the profits of what remained were deeply
cut by the unexpected attack of a young monk.

Albert did his best to put his holy wares in the most attract-
ive light. A short quotation from his public advertisement will
substantiate what has just been said about the popular repre-
sentation of the indulgence as an easy road to atonement : —

" The first grace is a plenary remission of all sins, than which one
might say no grace could be greater, because a sinner deprived of
grace through it achieves perfect remission of sin and the grace of God
anew. By which grace . . . the pains of purgatory are completely
wiped out." The second grace for sale is a confessional letter allowing
the penitent to choose his own confessor ; the third is the participation
in the merits of the saints. The fourth grace is for the souls in purga-
tory, a plenary remission of all sins. . . . Nor is it necessary for those
who contribute to the fund for this purpose to be contrite or to con-
fess.

Albert's principal agent was a certain Dominican named
Tetzel, a bold, popular preacher already expert in the business.
He did all in his power to impress the people with the value of
his commodities. When he entered a town, there was a solemn
procession, bells were rung, and everything possible done to
attract attention. Some of his sermons have survived, painting
in the most lively colors the agonies of purgatory and the ease
with which any one might free himself or his dead relatives
from the torturing flames by the simple payment of a gulden.

Though forbidden to enter Saxony, Tetzel approached suf-
ficiently near her borders to attract a number of her people. In

40 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

January, 1517, he was at Eisleben, and in the spring came to
Jiiterbog, so near Wittenberg that Luther could see the bad
effects of indulgences in his own parish. After preaching against
the abuse several times in 1516 and 1517, the earnest monk
finally decided to bring matters to a head by holding a debate
on the subject. He announced his intention in a rather dramatic
way. On the Feast of All Saints (November 1), the Elector's
relics kept in the Castle Church were solemnly displayed and
the special graces attached to them publicly announced. This
festival drew crowds to Wittenberg, both from curiosity and
from desire to participate in the spiritual benefits then obtain-
able. It was to give notice to these people that on October 31,
1517, Martin Luther posted up on the door of the church an
announcement of his intention to hold a debate on the value of
indulgences, " for the love and zeal for elucidating the truth,"
ninety-five theses or heads for debate being proposed.

The Theses are a good specimen of much of Luther's work.
Their chief defect is lack of perfect logical order. They evince
a tolerably deep acquaintance with mediaeval theology, but their
main interest is not theoretical but practical. Each proposition
is a blow at some popular error or some flagrant abuse. Though
occasionally qualifying, they deal trenchantly with the nature of
repentance, the power of the Pope to release souls from purga-
tory, the virtue of indulgences for living sinners, the outrageous
practices of the preachers of pardons, the treasury of the Church,
and other matters.

The first thesis cannot be understood without a slight know-
ledge of Latin. This language, singularly enough, has but one
word (penitentia) for the two very distinct ideas of penance
and penitence. Consequently the words of Christ translated
in the Vulgate " Penitentiam agite " might equally well mean,
" Repent ye," or " Do penance." They were taken in the latter
sense by the average priest, but Erasmus in his Paraphrases to
the New Testament had seen the real significance of the words,
and so had some other doctors known to Luther. Accordingly,
in the first two theses he says : —

1. Our Lord and master Jesus Christ in saying " Penitentiam agite "
meant that the whole life of the faithful should be repentance.

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 41

2. And these words cannot refer to penance that is confession and

satisfaction.

Among the other propositions the following are the most
important : —

5. The Pope does not wish, nor is he able, to remit any penalty
except what he or the Canon Law has imposed.

6. The Pope is not able to remit guilt except by declaring it for-
given by God — or in cases reserved to himself. . . .

11. The erroneous opinion that canonical penance and punishment
in purgatory are the same assuredly seems to be a tare sown while the
bishops were asleep.

21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences err who say that a
papal pardon frees a man from all penalty and assures his salvation.

22. The greater part of the people will be deceived by this undis-
tinguishing and pretentious promise of pardon which cannot be ful-
filled.

26. The Pope does well to say that he frees souls from purgatory
not by the power of the keys (for he has no such power) but by the
method of prayer.

28. It is certain that avarice is fostered by the money chinking in
the chest, but to answer the prayers of the Church is in the power of
God alone.

29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory want to be
freed? . . .

30. None is sure of the sincerity of his contrition, much less of his
full pardon.

31. They who believe themselves made sure of salvation by papal
letters will be eternally damned along with their teachers.

33. One should beware of them who say that those pardons are an
inestimable gift of the Pope by which man is reconciled to God.

36. Every Christian truly repentant has full remission of guilt and
penalty even without letters of pardon.

37. Every true Christian, alive or dead, participates in all the goods
of Christ and the Church without letters of pardon. . . .

38. Nevertheless papal pardons are not to be despised.

40. True contrition seeks and loves punishment, and makes relaxa-
tions of it hateful, at least at times.

43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or
lends to one in need does better than he who buys indulgences.

50. Christians are to be taught that if the Pope knew the exactions of

42 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

the preachers of indulgences he would rather have St. Peter's church
in ashes than have it built with the flesh and bones of his sheep.

60. The treasury of the Church is the power of the keys given by
Christ's merit.

62. The true treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory
and grace of God.

71. Who speaks against the apostolic truth of indulgences, let him
be anathema.

72. But who opposes the lust and license of the preachers of par-
dons, let him be blessed.

The scandalous practices of those preachers will induce the
laity to ask inconvenient questions, as : —

82. Why does not the Pope empty purgatory from charity ?

92. Let all those prophets depart who say to the people of Christ,
Peace, peace, where there is no peace.

93. But all those prophets $o well who say to the people of Christ,
Cross, cross, and there is no cross.

On the same day that he posted his Theses Luther wrote a
letter of remonstrance to the prelate under whose sanction the
indulgences had appeared, which still further explains his
position.

TO ALBERT, ARCHBISHOP OF MAYENCE

Wittenberg, October 31, 1517.

Grace and the mercy of God and whatever else may be and is !

Forgive me, Very Reverend Father in Christ, and illustrious Lord,
that I, the offscouring of men, have the temerity to think of a letter
to your high mightiness. . . .

Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's are hawked about
under your illustrious sanction. I do not now accuse the sermons of
the preachers who advertise them, for I have not seen the same, but I
regret that the people have conceived about them the most erroneous
ideas. Forsooth these unhappy souls believe that if they buy letters of
pardon they are sure of their salvation ; likewise that souls fly out
of purgatory as soon as money is cast into the chest ; in short, that the
grace conferred is so great that there is no sin whatever which cannot
be absolved thereby, even if, as they say, taking an impossible example,
a man should violate the mother of God. They also believe that in-
dulgences free them from all penalty and guilt.

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 43

My God ! thus are the souls committed, Father, to your charge,
instructed unto death, for which you have a fearful and growing reck-
oning to pay. . . .

What else could I do, excellent Bishop and illustrious Prince, ex-
cept pray your Reverence for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ to
take away your Instructions to the Commissioners altogether and im-
pose some other form of preaching on the proclaimers of pardons, lest
perchance some one should at length arise and confute them and their
Instructions publicly, to the great blame of your Highness. This I
vehemently deprecate, yet I fear it may happen unless the grievance
is quickly redressed. . . .

Your unworthy son,

Martin Luther, Augustinian, Dr. Theol.

On receipt of this letter, with the Theses enclosed, Albert be-
gan an "inhibitory process " against the " presumptuous monk,"
which was soon dropped on account of the action taken at Rome.
The archbishop promptly sent an account of the matter, with
several of the Wittenberg professor's works, to the Curia.

The attack on indulgences was like a match touched to gun-
powder. Every one had been thinking what Luther alone was
bold and clear-sighted enough to say, and almost every one
applauded him to the echo. Certain persons wrote "exhorting
him to stand fast and congratulating him on what he had done.
The Theses had an immediate and enormous popularity. Luther
himself was astonished at their reception, and before he knew
it they were printed at Nuremberg both in Latin and German.
The circle of humanists in this wealthy town received them
warmly, the famous painter, Albert Diirer, sending the author
a present of his own wood-cuts as a token of appreciation. These
were forwarded to him by his friend Scheurl, who enclosed
copies of the printed Theses. The answer explains the writer's
position : —

TO CHRISTOPHER SCHEURL AT NUREMBERG

Wittenberg, March 5, 1518.
Greeting. I received both your German and Latin letters, good and
learned Scheurl, together witli the distinguished Albert Diirer's gift,
and my Theses in the original and in the vernacular. As you are sur-

44 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

prised that I did not send them to you, I reply that my purpose was not
to publish them, but first to consult a few of my neighbors about them,
that thus I might either destroy them if condemned or edit them with
the approbation of others. But now that they are printed and circu-
lated far beyond my expectation, I feel anxious about what they may
bring forth ; not that I am unfavorable to spreading known truth abroad
— rather this is what I seek — but because this method is not that best
adapted to instruct the public. I have certain doubts about them my-
self, and should have spoken far differently and more distinctly had I
known what was going to happen. I have learned from their publica-
tion what is the general opinion about indulgences entertained every-
where by all, although they conceal it " for fear of the Jews." I have
felt it necessary to write a defence of my Theses which I have not yet
been able to print because my Lord Bishop of Brandenburg, to whom I
referred it, has long kept me waiting for his opinion. If the Lord give
me leisure I should like to publish a work in German on the virtue of
indulgences to supersede my desultory Theses. For I have no doubt
that people are deceived not by indulgences but by the use made of
them. . . .

The defence of which Luther has just spoken was returned to
him by the Bishop of Brandenburg with the advice not to print
it. He did so, however, but the slowness of the printers prevented
the appearance of the Kesolutions, as the book was called, until
September. In this he takes up the Theses one by one, explains
and supports them by argument — in the case of the first, for
example, citing the Greek to prove his statement. He dedicated
the work to Pope Leo X in . a letter written about the last of
May, in which, while speaking as a submissive son of the Church,
he shows his opinions have only been confirmed by the attacks
of enemies. The letter is well adapted to the man to whom it is
addressed, a humanist, perhaps a freethinker, who would de-
spise the writer more as an uncultured German than condemn
him as a heretic. There is a fine irony in the words about the
wonderful literary attainments of the age.

TO POPE LEO x

(Wittenberg, May 30?) 1518.
I have heard a very evil report of myself, Most Blessed Father, by
which I understand that certain persons have made my name loathsome

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 45

to you and yours, saying that I have tried to diminish the power of the
keys and the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, and therefore accusing
me of being a heretic, an apostate and a traitor, besides branding me
with an hundred other calumnious epithets. My ears are horrified and
my eyes amazed, but my conscience, sole bulwark of confidence, re-
mains innocent and at peace. . . .

In these latter days a jubilee of papal indulgences began to be
preached, and the preachers, thinking everything allowed them under
the protection of your name, dared to teach impiety and heresy openly,
to the grave scandal and mockery of ecclesiastical powers, totally dis-
regarding the provisions of the Canon Law about the misconduct of
officials. . . . They met with great success, the people were sucked
dry on false pretences . . . but the oppressors lived on the fat and
sweetness of the land. They avoided scandals only by the terror of
your name, the threat of the stake and the brand of heresy ... if,
indeed, this can be called avoiding scandals and not rather exciting
schisms and revolt by crass tyranny : . . .

I privately warned some of the dignitaries of the Church. By some
the admonition was well received, by others ridiculed, by others treated
in various ways, for the terror of your name and the dread of censure
are strong. At length, when I could do nothing else, I determined to
stop their mad career if only for a moment ; I resolved to call their
assertions in question. So I published some propositions for debate,
inviting only the more learned to discuss them with me, as ought to
be plain to my opponents from the preface to my Theses. Yet this is
the flame with which they seek to set the world on fire ! . . .

Now what shall I do ? I cannot recall my Theses and yet I see that
great hatred is kindled against me by their popularity. I come unwill-
ingly before the precarious and divided judgment of the public, I,
who am untaught, stupid and destitute of learning, before an age so
fertile in literary genius that it would force into a corner even Cicero,
no mean follower of fame and popularity in his day.

So in order to fulfil the desire of many and appease my opponents,
I am now publishing a little treatise to explain my Theses. To pro-
tect myself, I publish it under the guardianship of your name and the
shadow of your protection. . . .

And now, Most Blessed Father, I cast myself and all my posses-
sions at your feet ; raise me up or slay me, summon me hither or
thither, approve me or reprove me as you please. I shall recognize
your words as the words of Christ, speaking in you. If I have de-
served death, I shall not refuse to die. For the earth is the Lord's and

46 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

the fulness thereof ; blessed be he forever. Amen. May he always
preserve you. Amen.

Long before this letter was published, energetic steps had
been taken against Luther in Rome. As previously stated, the
Archbishop of Mayence, early in December, 1517, had forwarded
to the Pope the monk's Theses on Indulgences, those on schol-
astic philosophy, with other documents. Leo read the Theses,
which he judged clever though animated by envy. At another
time he professed to think they had been composed by a drunken
German who would see the error of his ways when sober. It
was, therefore, with no great apprehension that he ordered
Gabriel della Volta, General of the Augustinians, "to quiet
that man, for newly kindled flames are easily quenched."

Accordingly Volta instructed Staupitz to force the presumptu-
ous brother to recant. The matter was brought before the gen-
eral chapter of the Saxon province, held at Heidelberg, April
and May, 1518. Luther refused to recant, but resigned his
office of district vicar, to which his friend Lang was elected,
Staupitz being again chosen provincial vicar. Far from recant-
ing, the heretic expounded his fundamental ideas in a public
debate on justification by faith and free will. " The doctors,"
he writes Spalatin on May 18, " willingly heard my disputation
and rebutted it with such moderation that I felt much obliged
to them. My theology, indeed, seemed foreign to them, yet they
skirmished with it effectively and courteously, all except one
young doctor who moved the laughter of the audience by say-
ing, 4 If the peasants heard you they would stone you to death.' "
Among the converts won by the new leader at this time was
Martin Bucer, later one of the most prominent of the Protestant
divines.

While at Heidelberg, Luther was received by the brother of
the Elector Palatine in the splendid old castle, and shown all
the armor and precious objects there collected.1

1 The castle, which Luther describes as " almost royal," was imposing-. Some
authorities believe that it is reproduced, as it was about 1495, in the background
of a picture of Frederic Count Palatine, sometimes attributed to Diirer. Repro-
duced in Mrs. H. Cust: Gentlemen Errant (London, 1909), p. 248. Klassiker der
Kunst, iv. Diirer (Stuttgart and Leipsic, 1908), p. 87. Cf. note, p. 396.

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 47

Soon after his return to Wittenberg, Luther wrote the letter
to the Pope last translated, which may have been forwarded to
his Holiness by Staupitz.

In the mean time the Dominicans, wounded in the person of
Tetzel, sent urgent denunciations of the Wittenberg monk for
heresy to the fiscal procurator (we should say attorney-general)
of the Curia. Leo waited to see what would be the result of the
efforts of Volta, but when it was known that these had entirely
failed, he empowered the procurator to begin a formal action
" for suspicion of heresy." At the desire of this official, Perusco
by name, the general auditor (supreme justice of the Curia),
Jerome Ghinnucci, was charged with the conduct of the process,
and Silvester Prierias, Master of the Sacred Palace, was re-
quested to give an expert opinion on the Theses. As a Domini-
can and a Thomist he discharged his task thoroughly. His
memorial, which he proudly printed with the title The Dialogue,
takes the strongest ground of papal supremacy, and asserts that
whoever denies that the infallible Church has a right to do
what she actually does is a heretic. On this advice Ghinnucci
summoned Luther to appear at Rome within sixty days, send-
ing the citation together with the Dialogue, which were received
by the professor early in August. He answered the latter by a
pamphlet asserting that both popes and councils could err, and
this he sent to Prierias with a scornful letter : —

Your refutation seemed so trifling [he wrote] that I have answered
it ex tempore, whatever came uppermost in my mind. If you wish to
hit back, be careful to bring your Aquinas better armed into the arena,
lest you be not treated so gently again.

Before Luther had time to decide whether to obey the sum-
mons to Rome or not, the Curia suddenly altered the method
of procedure. On August 23 the Pope wrote his agent in Ger-
many, Cardinal Thomas de Vio of Gaeta, thence called Caje-
tan, to cite Luther to Augsburg at once, hear him, and if he
did not recant, send him bound to Rome, or failing that to put
him and his followers under the ban. This step was so surpris-
ing that many Germans believed it a breach of the Canon
Law, which provides a much slower process against a suspected

48 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

heretic. Such, however, was not the case. The Pope's action in
expediting matters was due to Cajetan himself. This nuncio
had been sent to Germany to attend the Diet of Augsburg
(1518) and urge the cause of the Turkish war on the Empire.
From this vantage-point he had observed the immense commo-
tion caused by the Theses and Resolutions, and was still more
unfavorably impressed by a sermon on the ban published by
the Wittenberg professor. Bans, said he, flew about like bats,
and were not much more to be regarded than those blind little
pests. Cajetan thought he would teach the scoffing preacher
what a terrible thing a ban really was, and wrote to Rome warn-
ing Leo of the danger of allowing Luther at large any longer,
and pointing out the advantage of dealing with him at once at
Augsburg. His letter was enforced by one from the Emperor
Maximilian, — who disliked and feared the Elector Frederic, —
promising his help in quelling the schismatic.

These missives had their desired effect. Ghinnucci, especially
shocked by the flippant reference to the apostolic thunders as
44 bats," concluded that Luther was already a notorious heretic,
and that he was justified in using the summary process pro-
vided by the Canon Law against criminals of this class. The
moment seemed favorable for a decisive blow, for Maximilian
had promised his help. Consequently the letter of August 23
written to Cajetan, and accompanied by one from Volta to the
Augustinian Provincial of South Germany, Hecker, urging him
to cooperate in securing the heretic's arrest.

At this critical juncture Luther was not left in the lurch by
his powerful friends. The Elector of Saxony refused to allow
him to appear without a safe-conduct from the Emperor, which
was secured late and with difficulty. Staupitz and Link also
went to Augsburg, where the interview was held, in order to
use their influence against the employment of force. Fortified
by this support, Luther went to Augsburg, where he arrived
on October 7, but waited three days until the safe-conduct of
Maximilian had reached him. During the interval he had a
visit from an Italian, Urban de Serralonga, with whom he hn<
the following conversation : —

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 49

Urban — Your business here may be summed up in one word of six
letters : Recant !

Luther — But may I not defend my position, or at least be in-
structed on it ?

Urban — Do you think this is a game of running in a ring ? Don't
you know that it is all right to deceive the people a little — as you
say the preachers of indulgence do — to get their money ? Do you
think the Elector Frederic will take arms to protect you ?

Luther — I hope not.

Urban — If not, where will you live ?

Luther — Under heaven.

Urban — What would you do if you had the Pope and cardinals
in your power ?

Luther — I would show them all reverence and honor.

Urban — (with a scornful gesture) Hem !

Luther had three separate interviews with Cajetan, on Octo-
ber 12, 13, and 14 respectively. On the first day, having studied
the etiquette of the occasion, he fell down on his face before
his judge. Much pleased with this humility, the legate com-
plimented him on his learning and bade him recant his errors.
Asked what errors he meant, the prelate, who had been study-
ing theology for two months, named two : first, the statement in
the Theses that the treasury of the Church (thesaurus indul-
gentiarum) consisted of the merits of Christ, and second, the
assertion in the Resolutions that the efficacy of the sacrament
depended on the faith of the recipient. The selection was a
clever one, both because on these two points there was most
unanimity at Rome, and also because it was supposed that the
accused would more readily retract these purely speculative
points than others of a more practical bearing. That Luther
did not recant, however, and that the altercation with his judge
at times became hot and furious, he himself tells, in his own
vivid way, in a letter to a friend at court : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN

Augsburg, October 14, 1518.
Greeting. As I do not care to write directly to the Elector, dear
Spalatin, do you, as his intimate friend, communicate the purport of

50 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

my letter to him. This is now the fourth day that my lord the legate
negotiates with me, or rather against me. He fairly promises, indeed,
that he will do all mercifully and paternally, for the sake of the most
illustrious Elector, but in reality he wishes to carry all before him
with mere stubborn brute force. He would neither allow me to answer
him in a public debate nor would he dispute with me privately. The
one thing which he repeated over and over was : " Recant. Admit
your error ; the Pope wishes it so, and not otherwise ; you must willy,
nilly," with other words to the same effect. He drew his most power-
ful argument against me from the decretal of Clement VI Unigeni-
tus.1 " Here," said he, " here you see that the Pope decides that the
merits of Christ are the treasury of the Church ; do you believe or do
you not believe ? " He allowed no statement nor answer, but tried to
carry his point with force of words and with clamor.

At length he was with difficulty persuaded by thejarayers of many
to allow me to present a written argument. This I ffl^^done to-day,
having taken with me Philip von Feilitzsch to represent tne Elector, of
whose request he again reminded the legate. After some time he threw
aside my paper with contempt, and again clamored for recantation.
With a long and wordy argument, drawn from the foolish books of
Aquinas, he thought to have conquered and put me to silence. I tried
to speak nine or ten times, but every time he thundered at me, and
continued the monologue. At length I, too, began to shout, saying that
if he could show me that that decretal asserted that the merits of Christ
was the treasury of the Church, I would recant as he wished. Good
Heavens, what gesticulation and rude laughter this remark caused !
He suddenly seized the book, read from it with breathless rapidity,
until he came to the place where it is written that Christ by his passion
acquired a treasure. Then I : " O most reverend Father, consider this
word ' acquire.' If Christ by his merits acquired a treasure, then his
merits are not the treasure, but that which the merits merited, namely,
the keys of the Church, are the treasure. Therefore my conclusion 2
was correct." At this he was suddenly confused, but not wishing to ap-
pear so, suddenly jumped to another place, thinking it prudent not to
notice what I had said. But I was hot and burst forth, certainly with-
out much reverence : " Do not think, most reverend Father, that we
Germans understand no grammar ; it is a different thing to acquire a

1 Canon Law, Extravagant, lib. 5, tit. 9, cap. 6. Not to be confused with the
bull Unigenitus of Clement XL

2 In the Fifty-eighth Thesis, to the effect that the power of the keys is the
treasury of the Church.

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 51

treasure and to be a, treasure." Having thus broken his self-confidence,
as he still clamored for recantation, I went away. He said : " Do not
return to me again unless you wish to recant."

But lo ! as soon as he had finished dinner he called our reverend
vicar, Father Staupitz, and used his blandishments on him to try to
get him to persuade me to recant. The legate even asserted, as I was
absent, that I had no better friend than he. When Staupitz answered
that he had always advised me, and still did so, to submit humbly to
the Church, and that I had declared publicly that I would do so,
Cajetan even confessed that he was, in his own opinion, inferior to
me in theological learning and in talent, but that, as the represent-
ative of the Pope and of the prelates, it was his duty to persuade me
to recant. At length they agreed that he should suggest articles for
nie to revoke.

Thus the bua^ess stands. I have no hope nor confidence in him.
I am prepa^ri^an appeal, resolved not to recant a syllable. If he
proceeds as he has begun, by force, I shall publish my answer to him,
that he may be confounded throughout the whole world.
Farewell in haste,

Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian.

As indicated in this letter, Staupitz and Liuk were far more
amenable to pressure than was Luther. They hoped that all
might be settled peaceably, in a way which would satisfy the
legate without Tjompromising their brother. Finding that he
was immovable, Staupitz absolved him from the vow of obedi-
ence, partly to relieve himself from responsibility, and partly,
no doubt, to guard him against molestation from Hecker and
Volta. Staupitz and Link then judged it best to retire from the
city without giving the nuncio notice of their intention.

On October 16, Luther drew up an appeal from the Pope
badly informed to the Pope to be better informed, and the next
day wrote Cajetan a courteous but firm letter. Notwithstanding
all precautions, the accused man stood in considerable danger,
for safe-conducts to heretics had been broken before. The
moment was almost as decisive as the later one at Worms, and
here, as there, the heroic monk stood like iron against the threats
of foes and the supplication of friends alike, resolved to do
nothing against his conscience.

52 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO CARDINAL CAJETAN AT AUGSBURG

(Augsburg, October 17, 1518.)

Very Reverend Father in Christ, I come again, not personally but
in writing ; deign to hear me mercifully.

My reverend and beloved father in Christ, our Vicar John Staupitz,
has pleaded with me to think humbly of my own opinion and to sub-
mit, and has persuaded me that your Reverence is favorably disposed
towards me. ... So that my fear has gradually passed away, or rather
changed into a singular love and true, filial veneration for your Rever-
ence.

Now, Most Reverend Father in Christ, I confess, as I have before
confessed, that I was assuredly unwise and too bitter, and too irrever-
ent to the name of the Pope. And although I had the greatest provo-
cation, I know I should have acted with more moderation and humility,
and not have answered a fool according to his folly. For so doing I am
most sincerely sorry, and ask pardon, and will say so from the pulpit,
as I have already done several times, and I shall take care in future to
act differently -and speak otherwise by God's mercy. Moreover I am
quite ready to promise never to speak of indulgences again and to main-
tain silence, provided only the same rule, either of speaking or of keep-
ing silence, be imposed on those men who have led me into this tragic
business.

For the rest, most reverend and now beloved Father in Christ, as to
the truth of my opinion, I would most readily recant, both by your
command and the advice of my vicar, if my conscience in any way
allowed it. But I know that neither the command nor the advice nor
the influence of any one ought to make me do anything against con-
science or can do so. For the arguments [you cite] from Aquinas and
others are not convincing to me, although I have read thern over in
preparation for my debates and have thoroughly understood them. I
do not think their conclusions are drawn from correct premises. The
only thing left is to overcome me with better reasons, in which I may
hear the voice of the Bride which is also the voice of the Bridegroom.

I humbly implore your Reverence to deign to refer this case to our
Most Holy Lord Leo X, that these doubts may be settled by the
Church, so that he may either compel a just withdrawal of my propo-
sitions or else their just affirmation. I wish only to follow the Church,
and I know not what effect my recantation of doubtful and unsettled
opinions might have, but I fear that I might be reproached, and with

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 53

reason, for not knowing either what I asserted or what I withdrew.
May your Reverence deign to receive my humble and suppliant peti-
tion, and to treat me with mercy as a son.

Your Reverence's devoted son,

Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian.

After waiting in vain for three days for an answer, Luther
left Augsburg secretly at night and returned to Wittenberg.
The first thing he did there was to write out the account of the
interview of which he had spoken to Spalatin, and to publish it
as the Acta Augustana. In the preface to the reader he says : —

They vexed Reuchlin a long time for some advice he gave them, now
they vex me for proposing questions for debate. Who is safe from the
teeth of this Behemoth ? . . .

I see that books are published and various rumors scattered abroad
about what I did at Augsburg, although truly I did nothing there but
lose the time and expense of the journey . . . for I was instructed
there that to teach the truth is the same as to disturb the Church, but
to flatter men and deny Christ is considered the same as pacifying and
exalting the Church of Christ.

Foiled of his purpose, Cajetan wrote the Elector Frederic
asking him to arrest Luther and send him to Rome. The peace-
loving prince may have wavered for an instant. According to
the story he summoned his counsellors and asked their advice.
One of them, Fabian von Feilitzsch, related the fable of the
sheep, who, at the advice of the wolves, sent away the watch-
dogs. If we give up Luther, he concluded, we shall have no one
to write in our defence, but they will accuse us all of being
heretics. It is probable that Frederic never seriously considered
the surrender of his subject, but he did ponder a plan to hide
him in a castle, as he later did in the Wartburg. Early in De-
cember Spalatin and Luther had a meeting at Lichtenberg to
discuss this project, which was not adopted. On December 8 the
Elector wrote a diplomatic letter to the cardinal, saying that he
was not convinced that the accused was a heretic, but had rather
been informed by learned men that his doctrines were only
objectionable to those whose pecuniary interests were involved.
He wished only to act as a Christian prince, but could not com-

54 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

promise his university b}7 sending an uncondemned man to
Rome.

Cajetan had been convinced by his interview that it would be
difficult to convict Luther of heresy. He therefore requested
Leo to settle the points in dispute once for all by an ex cathedra
declaration. This was done in a bull of November 9, which,
without mentioning names, condemned the errors of certain
monks on indulgences and other points. The claim could now
no longer be made that the matters in question were not decided
authoritatively.

Immediately upon the failure of Cajetan to arrest the heretic,
the Pope dispatched a special nuncio to Germany for this pur-
pose, Charles von Miltitz. ' Hoping to win the Elector to his
side, Leo sent him a long-coveted honor, the anointed golden
rose, with flattering letters both to him and to his principal
counsellors. On the other hand, Miltitz was furnished with a
ban against Luther and power to declare the interdict (i. e.,
suspension of all ministrations of the Church except baptism
and supreme unction) against Saxony. Cajetan had not thought
it wise to excommunicate a man whom he had not been able
to convict, but now it was felt that there would be no more
excuse for delay, and that the disturber of the Church's peace
would be brought to terms at once.

The plan of Rome was wrecked partly by the resistance of
Frederic, partly by the conduct of Miltitz, a Saxon by birth,
and a vain, frivolous person, who forgot his instructions as
soon as he arrived in Germany, hoping that instead of using
force he could set everything right by gentle means. He ac-
cordingly arranged for a personal interview with the Augustin-
ian friar, whom he expected to cajole into recantation ; this
took place at Altenburg, the capital of Electoral Saxony, early
in January, 1519. The result of the first day's negotiations is
thus related in a letter : —

TO FREDERIC, ELECTOR OF SAXONY

(Altenburg, January 5 or 6, 1519.)
Most serene, highborn Prince, most gracious Lord ! It overwhelms
me to think how far your Grace has been drawn into my affairs, but

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 55

as necessity and God so dispose it, I beg your Grace to be favorable
still.

Charles von Miltitz yesterday pointed out with care the crimes I
had committed against the Roman Church, and I humbly promised
to make what amends I could. I beg your Grace to attend to the plan
I proposed, for by it I meant to please your Grace.

First, I agreed to let the matter alone henceforth, until it bleeds to
death of itself, provided my opponents also keep silence. . . .

Secondly, I agreed to write to his Holiness the Pope, humbly sub-
mitting and recognizing that I had been too hot and hasty, though I
never meant to do aught against the Holy Roman Church, but only
as her true son to attack the scandalous preaching whereby she is
made a mockery, a byword, a stumbling-block, and an offence to the
people.

Thirdly, I promised to send out a paper admonishing every one to
follow the Roman Church, obey and honor her, and explaining that
my writings were not to be understood in a sense damaging to
her. . . .

Fourthly, Spalatin proposed, on the recommendation of Fabian von
Feilitzsch, to leave the case to the Archbishop of Salzburg.1 I should
abide by his judgment, with that of other learned and impartial men,
or else return to my appeal. Or perhaps the matter might remain un-
decided and things be allowed to take their natural course. But I fear
the Pope will allow no other judge but himself, nor can I tolerate his
judgment ; if the present plan fails, we shall have to go through the
farce of the Pope writing a text and my writing the commentary.
That would do no good.

Miltitz thinks my propositions unsatisfactory, but does not demand
recantation. . . .

Your Grace's obedient chaplain,

Doctor Martin.

In accordance with this plan Luther drew up a very humble
letter to the Pope, but as it did not satisfy Miltitz he never
sent it. On the second day of the conference for the agreement
here proposed there was substituted a much simpler one.

1 Mathew Lang, at this time coadjutor, though soon after Archbishop of Salz-
burg, is meant. He was a close friend of Staupitz.

56 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO FREDERIC, ELECTOR OF SAXONY

(Altenburg, January 6 or 7, 1519.)
Serene, highborn Prince, gracious Lord! Let me humbly inform
your Grace that Charles von Miltitz and I have at last come to an
agreement, and concluded our negotiations with two articles.

1. Both sides shall be inhibited from preaching, writing, and acting
further in the matter.

2. Miltitz will write the Pope at once, informing him how things
stand, and asking him to recommend the matter to some learned
bishop, who will hear me and point out the errors I am to recant.
For when I have learned my mistakes, I will gladly withdraw them,
and do nothing to impair the honor and power of the Roman Church.

The letter of Miltitz to the Pope was couched in somewhat
too sanguine terms. He represented that Luther was ready
to recant everything. Leo was so pleased to hear it that he
dispatched a right friendly missive to the Wittenberg monk
(March 29, 1519) inviting him to Rome to make his confession,
and even offering him money for the journey.

That he was able to take no further action for a time was
due to the political situation. In January, 1519, the Emperor
Maximilian died. Among the candidates for the position were
King Charles of Spain, King Francis of France, and the
Elector Frederic. The interest of the papacy in this election
overshadowed all other matters for a time, and the cautious
policy necessary prevented too much pressure being brought to
bear on Frederic. The process for heresy was consequently
suspended during fourteen months.

If Miltitz had been satisfied with his interview, Luther was
not. When they parted with the kiss of peace he felt that it was
a Judas kiss and that the envoy's tears were crocodile's tears.
He tried, nevertheless, to live up to the spirit of the agreement.
In fulfilment of the third proposition in the first day's inter-
view, he published An Instruction on Certain Articles. In this
he explains his position on a number of points. Prayers for
the dead in purgatory he thinks are allowable. Of indulgences
it is enough for the common man to know that indulgence is a
relaxation of the satisfaction for sin, but is a much smaller thing

THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY 57

than a work of charity, for it is free ; no one sins in not buying
a papal pardon, but if he buys one instead of giving to the poor
or helping his neighbor, he sins, mocking himself and God. The
Church's commands, he says, are to be obeyed, yet one should
place God's commands higher. " Of good works I have said,
and still say, that no one is good nor can any one do right,
unless God's grace first makes him just ; wherefore no one is
justified by works, but good works come naturally from him
who is just." In conclusion he adds that there is no doubt that
God has honored the Roman Church above all others.

The first article of the agreement, that both sides should main-
tain silence, came to nothing, for neither party observed the truce,
and the whole controversy was soon given an £ven wider pub-
licity than it had yet attained, by an event of the first import-
ance, the great debate with John Eck at Leipsic.

CHAPTER VI

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE. 1519.

The ablest and most persistent opponent Luther ever had
was John Eck. From 1517 to 1543 this champion of the Church
met him at every turn and did everything in his power to foil
the great heresiarch. Like the Wittenberger, Eck was a peasant
by extraction and a monk by profession, a theologian of no
mean ability and a man of energy and resource. Before 1517
he had distinguished himself in debates at Vienna and else-
where, and burned to make himself still more famous in this
line. Just before Luther crossed his path, he charged Erasmus
— the foremost scholar of the day — with something very like
heresy because the latter had said that the Greek of the New
Testament was not as good as that of Demosthenes.1

The publication of the Ninety-five Theses gave him a more
substantial object to attack, and he at once assailed them in a
pamphlet called Obelisks (literally the small daggers with which
notes are marked). Of it Luther wrote, on March 24, 1518, to
his friend John Silvius Egranus of Zwickau : —

A man of signal and talented learning and of learned talent has
recently written a book against my Theses. I mean John Eck, doctor
of theology, chancellor of the university of Ingolstadt, canon of Eich-
statt and preacher at Augsburg, a man already famous and widely
known as an author. What cuts me most is that we had recently
formed a great friendship. Did I not already know the machinations
of Satan, I should be astonished at the fury with which Eck has
broken that sweet amity without warning or letter of farewell.

In his Obelisks he calls me a fanatic Hussite, heretical, seditious,
insolent and rash, not to mention such slight abuse as that I am
dreaming, clumsy, unlearned, and a despiser of the Pope. In short the
book is nothing but the foulest abuse, expressly mentioning my name
and directed against my Theses. It is nothing less than the malice and

1 Erasmi opera. Leyden, 1703, vol. iii, no. 303, February 2, 1518.

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE 59

envy of a maniac. I would have swallowed this sop for Cerberus,1 but
my friends compelled me to answer it.

The answer was a pamphlet entitled Asterisks, circulated in
manuscript.

Before the altercation had progressed any further, it was
taken out of Luther's hands by another Wittenberg professor,
John Bodenstein of Carlstadt, a man destined to play an im-
portant part in the Protestant revolt. Though careful to incur
no great danger, he was by nature a revolutionary, and longed
to out-Luther Luther. While the latter was away at Heidelberg
in the spring of 1518, Carlstadt came forward with a set of
theses against Eck on free will and the authority of Scripture.
The Ingolstadt professor answered these with some counter-
theses, in which an extreme view of the papal supremacy was
maintained. Carlstadt, who held a benefice directly from the
Pope, was not prepared to answer this point, but Luther had no
such scruples, and towards the end of the year he published
twelve propositions directed against Eck. Of these the most
important was the twelfth : —

The assertion that the Roman Church is superior to all other
Churches is proved only by weak and vain (frigidis) papal decrees of
the last four hundred years, against which militate the accredited
history of eleven hundred years, the Bible, and the decree of the
Nicene Council, the holiest of all councils.

This unheard-of attack on the power of the Roman See made
an immense sensation. Eck could not leave it unnoticed, nor
did he wish to, and therefore arranged that he should debate
with both Wittenberg professors. A letter — according to
modern notions a very rude one — written during the course
of negotiations, is illuminating : 2 —

TO JOHN ECK AT INGOLSTADT

Wittenberg, February 18, 1519.
I wish you salutation and that you may stop seducing Christian
souls. I regret, Eck, to find so many reasons to believe that your pro-

1 As Burke would have said, " this honeyed opiate compounded bf treason and
murder."

2 Enders, v, 6.

60 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

fessed friendship for me is hypocritical. You boast that you seek
God's glory, the truth, the salvation of souls, the increase of the faith,
and that you teach of indulgences and pardons for the same reasons.
You have such a thick head and cloudy brain that, as the apostle says,
you know not what you say. . . .

I wish you would fix the date for the disputation or tell me if you
wish me to fix it. More then. Farewell.

Leipsic was finally chosen as the ground for the debate.
The faculty of that university made some difficulties, fearing
to become involved, but Duke George of Albertine Saxony,
maintaining that the advancement of Christian truth was the
chief end of the university, forced them to yield. During the
next six months Luther's principal occupation was the prepara-
tion for the battle, for which he plunged eagerly into the study
of Church history and especially of the Canon Law. The re-
sults of these researches, which left a lasting influence on his
mind, are brilliantly portrayed in two letters written on the
same day to his best friend : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wittenberg, about February 24, 1519. Letter no. 1.)
Greeting. I beseech you, dear Spalatin, be not fearful nor let your
heart be downcast with human cares. You know that if Christ did not
rule me, I should have perished long ago, either at the first contro-
versy about indulgences, or when my sermon on them was published,
or when I promulgated my Resolutions, or when I answered Prierias,
or recently in the interview at Augsburg, especially as I went thither.
What mortal man was there who did not either fear or hope that I
would cause my death by one of these things ? In fact Olsnitzer re-
cently wrote from Rome to our honorary chancellor, the Duke of Po-
merania, that my Resolutions and Answer to Prierias had so perturbed
the Roman Church that they were at a loss how to suppress them, but
that they intended to attack me not by law, but by Italian subtility
— these were his very words. I understand this to mean poison or
assassination.

I repress much for the sake of the Elector and university which
otherwise I should pour out against that spoiler of the Bible and the
Church, Rome, or rather Babylon. For the truth of the Scripture and
of the Church cannot be spoken, dear Spalatin, without offending that

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE 61

beast. Do not therefore hope that I shall be quiet or safe in future
unless you wish me to give up theology altogether. Let my friends
think me mad. For the thing will not be ended (if it be of God) even
should all my friends desert me as all Christ's disciples and friends
deserted him, and the truth be left alone to save herself by her own
might, not by mine nor by yours nor by any man's. I have expected
this hour from the first.

My twelfth proposition was extorted from me by Eck, but, as the
Pope has defenders enough, I do not think they ought to take it ill
unless they forget the freedom of debate. At all events, even should I
perish, nothing will be lost to the world. For my friends at Wittenberg
have now progressed so far, by God's grace, that they do not need me
at all. What will you ? I fear I am not worthy to suffer and die for
such a cause. That will be the blessed lot of better men, not of so foul
a sinner. . . .

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wittenberg, about February 24, 1519. Letter no. 2.)
Greeting. I had just finished my last letter, dear Spalatin, when
Carlstadt gave me the letter which you sent him, full of such com-
plaints that I was almost moved to anger. You urge me to tell my
plan. I am not unwilling for you to know what I intend, but I know
the best way to defeat a plan is to tell it, especially if the matter be of
God, who does not like his plans to be laid bare before they are ful-
filled. . . .

You know that I have to do with a crafty, arrogant, slippery, loud-
mouthed sophist, whose one aim is to traduce me publicly and hand
me over to the Pope devoted to all the furies. You will understand
his iniquitous snares if you read his twelfth proposition.1 Wherefore,
considering his craft, and seeing that I was about to be ruined by his
arts, I carefully prepared my twelfth proposition, that he may imagine
that he has most certainly triumphed, and while singing a pecan of
joy, shall forthwith expose himself to the scorn of all, God willing.
For I know that at this stage of the debate he will burst forth pas-
sionately gesticulating and shouting that I cannot prove my assertion,
but have made a mistake in reckoning time (as you also think), and
that it is much more than four hundred years ago, more than a thou-
sand, ever since the time of Pope Julius I, directly after the Nicene

. 1 Asserting the universal supremacy of the Pope, opposed to Luther's twelfth
proposition quoted above.

62 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Council, that the Roman Church published decrees asserting that she
was the superior of all and that no council could be called without her
assent. Relying on these statements he will even laugh, I hope, at my
incredible folly and rashness.

Then I shall say that these decrees were not then received, and that
if Gregory IX, the first collector of the decretals (who in the time of
Frederick II canonized St. Francis, St. Dominic, and our own St.
Elizabeth, i. e., is not yet dead four hundred years), and if Boniface
VIII, author of the sixth book of decretals, and Clement V, author of
the Clementines, had not collected these decretals and published them,
Germany would doubtless never have known them.1 Therefore it is
to be attributed to these three popes that the decretals of the Roman
pontiffs were spread abroad and the Roman tyranny was established.

To what conclusion do these arguments lead ? I deny that the Roman
Church is superior to all Churches, but not that she is our superior, as
she now is de facto. How will Eck prove that the Church of Constan-
tinople, or any Greek Church, or that of Antioch or Alexandria or
Africa or Egypt, was ever under the Roman Church or received
bishops confirmed by her ? . . .

We Germans established the authority of the popes as much as we
could when the Empire was transferred to us, and in return we have
borne them as a punishment of the furies, headsmen and tormentors
and blood-suckers of archbishoprics and bishoprics.

I call the decretals " vain " because they twist scriptural texts to
their own purposes, texts which speak nothing of government but
only of spiritual food and faith. . . .

I count the papal power as a thing indifferent, like wealth or health
or other temporal goods, and am very sorry that so much is made of
temporal matters, which are insisted on as if by the command of God,
though he always teaches that they should be despised. How can I bear
with equanimity this perverse interpretation of God's Word and that
wrong opinion, even if I allow the power of the Roman Church as a

thing convenient ?

Farewell.

Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian.

1 The Canon Law is composed of several parts. The first, the Decretum of Gra-
tian is a collection of ancient canons made in the twelfth century. To this Greg-
ory IX added five hooks of decretals (literce decretales 1243), and Boniface VIII
a sixth book (liber sextus, 1298). Other additions, the Clementines and Extravagantes,
were made at various times later until 1484. Many of the decretals in the Canon
Law are forgeries, as Luther says.

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE 63

Of the sojourn in Leipsic (June 27-July 18), the reception
there and the debate itself, the best account is given by Luther
in the letter next translated. The encounter was held in a richly
decorated hall of the Pleissenburg, a castle only recently torn
down to make way for the new Rathaus. A large and dis-
tinguished audience had gathered, including Duke George, later
one of the most determined opponents of the new doctrine.

An eye-witness has left us the first description of Luther as
he appeared on this occasion, and one which agrees well with
Cranach's earliest portrait of him, the wood-cut of 1520. He
was of middle height, so emaciated that one could almost count
his bones, yet he seemed in the vigor of manhood. His voice was
clear and distinct. Polite and cheerful in society, he affected no
stoicism, but gave each hour its due. His serene countenance
was never disturbed. The richness and fluency of his Latin
diction was noticed, as was his careful preparation of the ma-
terial.

Only contemporaries could appreciate the ability of the speak-
ers in this debate, full notes of which have been preserved. In
learning and force of argument the honors seem to be about
equal. Eck manoeuvred skilfully to make Luther's opinions
appear identical with those of Huss. The latter took up the chal-
lenge, and on the second day of the combat boldly asserted :
" It is certain that among the articles of John Huss and the
Bohemians there are many which are most Christian and evan-
gelic, which the universal Church is not able to condemn.,,
These words sent a thrill through the audience : Duke George
put his arms akimbo, shook his head, and said loudly, " That 's
the plague."

Eck had accomplished his point in driving Luther to a posi-
tion of universally acknowledged heresy. He played his ad-
vantage with great skill, taxing his opponent over and over with
being a Hussite, Luther often interrupting him with " It is
false," or, " He lies impudently."

After the question of the papal supremacy was put aside for
other points, the debate, which continued until July 14, was
comparatively tame. Let us now hear what Luther has to say
about it : —

64 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wittenberg,) July 20, 1519.

... I should have written long ago about this famous debate of
ours, but I had neither time nor place to do it. Certain men of Leipsic,
neither candidly nor justly, triumph with Eck and babble of his fame,
but you can judge of it from my account.

Almost the instant that we came, before we had descended from our
wagons, the Inhibition ' of the Bishop of Merseburg was fixed to the
doors of the churches, alleging against the debate some new points,
declaratory and other. This was disregarded, and he who had posted
the notice was thrown into chains by the Town Council because he had
done it without their knowledge.

Accomplishing nothing by this trick, they resorted to another. Hav-
ing called Carlstadt aside, they urged him (at Eck's desire) to agree
that the debate should not be reported in writing, for he hoped to get
the better of us by shouting and gesticulating, in which points indeed
he is our superior. Carlstadt said that the agreement had already been
made and must be adhered to, and that the debate should be reported.
At length, to obtain this point at all, he was forced to consent that the
report of the debate should not be published prior to the decision of
the judges. Then a new dispute arose about choosing them. At length
they forced him to consent that the judges should be chosen after the
disputation was finished, otherwise they would not debate at all. Thus
they put us on the horns of a dilemma, so that in either case we should
have the worst of it, whether we refused to debate on these terms, or
recognized the necessity of submitting to unjust judges. See how plain
is their guile by which they would filch the freedom we had agreed
upon ! For we know that the universities and the Pope will either never
decide or will decide against us, which is just what they desire.

The next day they called me aside and proposed the same thing. I
refused their conditions, fearing the Pope. Then they proposed the
universities as judges without the Pope. I asked that the conditions
agreed upon be observed, and when they refused I withdrew and de-
clined to debate. At once an uncontradicted report went abroad that
I dared not, and what was worse would allow no judges. The affair
was bandied about and interpreted in the most odious and malignant
light, so that they even won over our best friends and prepared a last-

1 The bishop thought the matter of the debate had already been decided by the
bull of November 9, 1518, mentioned above, p. 54.

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE 65

ing shame for our university. So I went to them with conciliatory-
friends, and accepted their conditions, even though indignant at them.
But I reserved my power of appeal and excluded the Roman Curia, so
that there might be no prejudice to my case.

Eck and Carlstadt debated a week on free will. Carlstadt with
God's help advanced splendid and copious arguments and citations and
brought books to prove his points. A chance was thus given Eck to
oppose Carlstadt ; he refused to debate unless the books were left at
home, because by them Carlstadt could prove the correctness of his
own quotations from the Bible and the Fathers and the inaccuracy of
Eck's. So another tumult arose. At length it was decided for Eck that
the books should be left at home, but who cannot see that when a ques-
tion of truth is at stake it is desirable to have the books at hand?
Never did hatred and ambition show themselves more impudently
than here.

At last the man of guile conceded all that Carlstadt argued for,
although he had violently opposed it, and agreed with him in all, boast-
ing that he had brought Carlstadt over to his opinion. He abandoned
Scotus and the Scotists, Capreolus and the Thomists, saying that the
schoolmen had thought and taught the same as Carlstadt. Then and
there fell Scotus and Capreolus with their respective schools !

The next week he debated with me — at first sharply about the
primacy of the Pope. His, strength lay in the words, "thou art Peter,"
"feed my sheep," "follow thou me," and "strengthen thy brethren,"
together with a lot of quotations from the Fathers. (You will soon see
what I answered.) Then, resting his whole weight on the Council of
Constance, which had condemned the assertion of Huss that the papacy
was dependent on the Emperor, he went to the extreme length of say-
ing that it bore sway by divine right. Thereupon, as if entering the
arena, he cast the Bohemians in my teeth, and charged me with being
an open heretic and an ally of the Hussites. For the sophist is no less
insolent than rash. These charges tickled the Leipsic audience more
than the debate itself.

In rebuttal I pointed to the Greeks for a thousand years, and to the
ancient Fathers who had not been under the sway of the Roman pon-
tiff to whom I did not deny a precedence in honor. Then I discussed
the authority of a council. I said openly that some articles had been
wrongly condemned [so. by the Council of Constance], as they had been
taught in the plainest words by Paul, Augustine, and even Christ him-
self. At this point the reptile swelled up, painted my crime in the
darkest colors, and almost drove the audience wild with his rhetoric.

66 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

At length I proved from the words of that council that not all the
articles there condemned were heretical and erroneous, so that his
mode of proof accomplished nothing. And thus the matter rested.
j The third week we debated penance, purgatory, indulgences, and the
power of a priest to absolve. For he did not care about his dispute with
Carlstadt, but only that with me. Indulgences fell through completely
and he agreed to almost all I said, so that their use was turned to
scorn and mockery. He hoped this would be the subject of a future
debate with me, as he said in public, that people might understand
that he made no great matter of indulgences. He is said to have
granted that had I not disputed the power of the Pope he would have
agreed with me easily on all points. He even confessed to Carlstadt :
" If I could only agree with Luther as much as I do with you, I
would go home with him at once." The man is fickle and subtle, ready
to do anything. He who once said to Carlstadt that the schoolmen
taught the same as he, said to me that Gregory of Rimini was the only
one who supported me against all others. Thus he thinks it no fault to
assert and deny the same thing at different times. Nor do the men of
Leipsic grasp this, so great is their stupidity. And what is still more
monstrous, he asserts one thing in the academy and another in the
church to the people. Asked by Carlstadt why he did this, the man
shamelessly replied that the people ought not to be taught points on
which there was doubt.

My part thus ended, he debated the last three days with Carlstadt,
agreeing to and yielding all : that spontaneous action is sin ; that free
will without grace can do nothing but sin ; that there is sin in every
[natural] good work ; that it is only grace which enables a man to do
what he can for the Disposer of grace ; — all of which the schoolmen
deny. So in the whole debate he treated nothing as it deserved except
my thirteenth x proposition. In the mean time he congratulates him-
self, triumphs and reigns, but only until we shall have published our
side. As the debate turned out badly, I shall draw up additional pro-
positions.

The citizens of Leipsic never greeted us nor visited us, but acted
like the bitterest enemies ; but Eck they followed and clung to and
invited to dinners in their houses and gave him a robe and a chamois-
hair gown. They escorted him around on horseback; in fact they
tried everything they could think of to insult us. Moreover, they per-
suaded Caesar Pflug and Duke George to let these things pass. They

1 That about the supremacy of the Pope quoted above as the twelfth. The
number had been changed by the interpolation of an additional proposition.

THE LEIPSIC DEBATE 67

did give us one thing, the customary present of wine, which perhaps it
would not have been safe for them to omit. The few who favored us
came to us clandestinely, but Dr. Stromer of Auerbach, a man of up-
right mind, invited us and so did Professor Pistorius. Duke George
himself invited three of us together. Likewise the most illustrious Duke
summoned me by myself and talked much with me about my writings,
especially that on the Lord's Prayer, and mentioned that the Huss-
ites expected much from me, and that I had raised doubts in many
consciences about the Lord's Prayer, so that many complained that
they would not be able to say one paternoster in four days if they
thought they ought to believe me, and much else to the same effect. Nor
was I so stupid as not to know the difference between a fife and a f — ; I
regretted that the excellent and pious prince should represent and com-
ply with the feelings of others when I saw he was so clever in speaking
like a prince about his own.

The last exhibition of hatred was this : when on the day of St. Peter
and St. Paul [June 29] I was asked by our rector, the Duke of Pomer-
ania, to read the gospel in the chapel of the castle, suddenly the
report of my preaching filled the city, and such a vast concourse of
men and women came to hear me that I was compelled to preach in
the debating-hall, with all the professors and other hostile listeners
sitting around. The gospel for the day [Matthew xvi, 13-19] clearly
takes in the subject of both debates, and so I was forced to expound
the substance of the disputations to all, to the great annoyance of
Leipsic.

Stirred up by this, Eck preached four times thereafter in different
churches, reviling me and attacking all I had said. Thus those would-
be theologians bade him do. But / was not allowed to preach again,
although many asked it. I was only to be accused and criminated with-
out a chance to defend myself. They acted on the same principle in
the debate, so that Eck, although in the negative, had the last word,
which I could not refute.

When Caesar Pflug heard that I had preached (for he was not then
present), he said, "I wish Dr. Luther would save his sermons for
Wittenberg." In short, I have known hatred before, but never more
shameless nor more impudent.

Here you have the whole tragedy. Dr. Planitz will tell you the rest,
for he was present in person. Because Eck and Leipsic sought their
own glory and not the truth, it is no wonder that they began badly and
ended worse. For whereas we hoped to make peace between Witten-
berg and Leipsic, they acted so odiously that I fear it will rather seem

68 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

that discord and mutual dislike are now firstborn. I, who try to bridle
my impetuosity, am not able to banish all dislike of them, because I
am flesh and their impudent hatred and malignant injustice were over-
bearing in so sacred and divine a cause.

Farewell and commend me to the most illustrious Elector. . . .

Yours,

Martin Luther.

It is plain from this letter that the writer was smarting under
the sense of outrage. If he had not been defeated, he had been
out-manoeuvred. Such debates, of course, decide nothing. Each
party remained strengthened in its own opinion. In this case,
too, the universities, to whom the decision was submitted, put
off giving it for one reason or another.

Yet the disputation at Leipsic was a turning-point. It showed
that the Wittenberg monk was no longer in a position where
reconciliation with the Church was possible. In the train of the
combat followed a cloud of polemics, half the Germans who
could write taking sides against the new leader, and the other
half for him. As this bickering — for that is what most of it
was — left little permanent result, it need not find a large place
in the biography of Luther, even though he took an active part
in the controversy.

As he has spoken in a recent letter of the danger of assassina-
tion, it is interesting to see what foundations his suspicions
had. The peril was probably very slight, but was given some
color by the visit of suspicious strangers, one of whom he de-
scribed, many years later, as follows : —

A man came to me in 1519, with whom I shook hands, and whom
I took home with me. He said : " Dear Doctor, it surprises me that
you so readily shake hands with strangers ; are you not afraid of being
shot ? I am alone with you." I replied : " If you killed me, you would
die, too." " In that case," said he, " the Pope would make me a saint
and you a heretic." When I heard that, I called in Sieberger [the
monastery servant], after which he soon left town.

CHAPTER VII

THE PATRIOT. 1519-20

The revolt from Rome was by no means a purely religious
phenomenon. Its enormous and immediate success can only be
explained by the great variety of motives to which it appealed.
It promised to the Christian a purer faith ; to the patriotic Ger-
man a stronger country freed from the foreign yoke ; to the
lower classes a millennium of universal brotherhood, equality
and freedom. The hopes of all parties were not destined to be
realized, some of them suffered a bitter disappointment ; but all
were willing to join in the common movement for their special
ends, and it was this union and interaction of forces which pro-
duced that great revolution usually known as the Reformation.
And of these stirring times Luther was the heart and soul.
During the years 1519-1523 especially, it almost seemed as
if he were lifted above himself and transcended the limits of
his own personality. Of this time Professor Harnack has well
said : —

For a period — it was only for a few years — it seemed as if his
spirit would attract to itself and mould into a wonderful unity all that
the time had of living vigor in it ; as if to him, as to no one before, the
power had been given to make his personality the spiritual centre
of the nation, and to summon his century into the lists, armed with
every weapon.

Luther himself was astonished at the almost universal re-
sponse to his appeal. The course of events reacted on him,
hurrying him along from a position of humble protest to the
leadership of all the revolutionary forces of the time. ' Every
occurrence carried him on like a wave and left him far in ad-
vance of his previous station. Each book he read, each friend
he made, offered a powerful stimulus to his development. His
progress, accurately traceable in his letters and other writings,
is a study of absorbing interest.

70 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

His best friend and ablest lieutenant, at this time as later,
was Philip Melanchthon, whom he first learned to know in the
summer of 1518. When called in this year to teach Greek at
the University of Wittenberg, Melanchthon was not yet twenty-
one. The precocious youth, who had entered Heidelberg at
thirteen and had taken the degree of bachelor at fifteen, and
of master one year later, began at once to lecture on and to edit
the classics. These studies were his passion, though he later
won greater distinction in the field of divinity. He was a per-
fect contrast to Luther, a scholar and pedagogue rather than a
man of action, a peacemaker rather than a warrior. The rela-
tions of the two men were always uncommonly close. Though
the younger occasionally found the support given him by the
elder and more robust irksome, he leaned upon it, and more than
once found that when deprived of it he was unable to stand
alone. Melanchthon was the disciple whom Luther loved, and,
as can be seen from this extract of a letter to Spalatin written
a few days after the young scholar's advent (August 31, 1518),
loved at first sight : —

Doubt not that we have done all and shall do all you recommend
about Philip Melanchthon. He delivered an oration the fourth day
after he came, in the purest and most learned style, by which he won
the thanks and admiration of all, so that you need not worry about
commending him to us. We have quickly abandoned the opinion
we formed from his small stature and homeliness, and now rejoice
and wonder at his real worth, and thank our most illustrious Elector
and your good offices, too, for giving him to us. Indeed, it is you
who must rather study to put his merits in a proper light to our sover-
eign. While Philip is alive, I desire no other Greek teacher. I only
fear that perhaps his delicate health cannot well endure the life in
our parts, and besides, I hear that his salary is so small that the boast-
ful University of Leipsic hopes to get him away from us soon. Indeed
he was galled by them before he came to us. I suspect (and not I
alone) that Pf effinger * will prove true to his custom in this matter
also, and be too faithful a guardian of the Elector's purse. And so,
dear Spalatin, if I may speak frankly, as with a good friend, take
care not to despise Melanchthon for his looks and his tender age, for
the man is worthy of all honor. I would not have our university want-
1 The treasurer of Electoral Saxony : cf . supra, p. 34.

THE PATRIOT 71

ing in those humane studies, the lack of which gives our rivals some
excuse for making us a byword.

From this time on Luther's letters are full of allusions to
him " who has almost every virtue known to man and yet is
my dear and intimate friend." Shortly after the Leipsic debate
Melanchthon published some theses denying the doctrine of
transubstantiation — an important contribution to the thought
of Luther, who speaks of them and their author in a letter to
Staupitz, October 3, 1519 : —

You have seen Philip's theses by this time — somewhat bold, to be
sure, but true. His solution of the problem naturally would excite our
admiration as it has. If Christ please, Melanchthon will make many
Luthers and a most powerful enemy of the devil and of scholasticism,
for he knows both the trumpery of the world and the rock of Christ,
therefore shall he be mighty.

Melanchthon's fundamental ideas were drawn from Luther's
inexhaustible mine of thought, but he developed, clarified, and
systematized them, and thus repaid the debt he had contracted.
Another powerful influence towards the formation of the new
system of theology in Luther's mind was found in the writings
of John Huss. The German reformer had read one of them
during the first years in the cloister, and had wondered how a
heretic could speak so Christianly, but thinking that the par-
ticular book must have been composed before the apostasj^, he
shut it up and forgot it. Later in preparing for the Leipsic
debate, he had read enough of the history of the Council of
Constance, where Huss was condemned, to believe that many
of the latter's propositions were evangelic and orthodox, and he
had flatly declared his conviction of this at the encounter with
Eck. Several Hussites, having formed hopes in the new re-
former destined to be realized, had gathered at this great event,
and two of the most distinguished of them had written him and
sent one of Huss's works. Luther did not have time to read
it until early in 1520. He then first recognized that in many
things the Bohemian had been his predecessor, and he did not
hesitate to proclaim himself the condemned heretic's disciple.
How deep and fervent was his admiration can best be gathered
from his own words : —

72 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wittenberg, February, 1520.1)
. . . Having consulted with friends about the Elector's advice, I find
I cannot, without peril to my conscience, offer peace of my own ac-
cord. I have done enough that way hitherto, and met no response to
my efforts ; I am always treated with force when it comes to negotia-
tion, and cannot relax my whole strength as long as Eck is clamoring :
I am obliged to commend the cause to God and follow him loyally,
having committed my ship to the winds and waves. I can only pray
for God's mercy. I have an idea that a revolution is about to take
place unless God withhold Satan. I have seen the devil's artful plans
for my perdition and for that of many. What will you ? The Word
of God can never be advanced without whirlwind, tumult, and danger.
The Word is of infinite majesty, it is wonderful in the heights and in
the depths ; as the prophet says : " It slew the fattest of them and
smote down the chosen men of Israel." One must either despair of
peace and tranquillity or else deny the Word. War is of the Lord who
did not come to send peace. Take care not to hope that the cause of
Christ can be advanced in the world peacefully and sweetly, since you
see the battle has been waged with his own blood and that of the
martyrs. I have hitherto taught and held all the opinions of John
Huss unawares; so did John Staupitz; in short, we are all Hussites
without knowing it. Paul and Augustine are Hussites to a word. Be-
hold the horror which I have discovered without any Bohemian teacher
or leader : I know not what to think for astonishment when I see such
terrible judgments of God on mankind that the plain gospel truth has
been publicly burned and considered damnable for a hundred years,
and no one to assert it ! Woe to the land !

Farewell.

Martin Luther.

Next to his studies in Huss and in the Canon Law, Luther's
eyes were opened to the iniquities of Rome by a work of
Lorenzo Valla, one of the most brilliant of the fifteenth cen-
tury humanists, the proof that the Donation of Constantine was
a forgery. This celebrated document, composed in the ninth
century, purported to be a deed drawn up by tl^e Emperor

1 For this date, cf . Enders, ii, 345. Kohler argues for a later date ; cf. Luther
und die Kirchengeschichte (Erlangen, 1900), i, 198.

THE PATRIOT 73

Constantine in the fourth century, presenting the Pope with
central Italy, and giving him a general overlordship of the
Western world. The forgery had been received for six uncritical
centuries as authentic and had become one of the corner-stones
of the papal pretensions, and of the Canon Law. Luther wrote of
it, February 24, 1520, to his friend Spalatin as follows : —

I have at hand Lorenzo Valla's proof (edited by Hutten) that the
Donation of Constantine is a forgery. Good heavens ! what darkness
and wickedness is at Rome ! You wonder at the judgment of God
that such unauthentic, crass, impudent lies not only lived but prevailed
for so many centuries, that they were incorporated in the Canon Law,
and (that no degree of horror might be wanting) that they became as
articles of faith. I am in such a passion that I scarcely doubt that the
Pope is the Antichrist expected by the world, so closely do their acts,
lives, sayings, and laws agree. But more of this when I see you. If
you have not yet seen the book, I shall take care that you read it.

Ulrich von Hutten, first mentioned by Luther in the last
letter, was soon to become one of his strongest supporters and
allies. A knight of old Franconian family, combining consid-
erable literary ability with fiery ambition, he devoted his life
to the cause of patriotism and the resistance of ecclesiastical
oppression. He and his friend Franz von Sickingen, whose large
resources and wide connections made him feared even by the
greater princes, were the leaders of the party of the knights
whose programme was the restoration of German national pre-
stige under the leadership of their order. At first the national-
ists regarded Luther merely as a squabbling monk, but by
1520 they read the sign of the times more plainly, and saw
what an immense impulse would be given to the cause of Ger-
man freedom by uniting it with the cause of spiritual emancipa-
tion. Hutten had only one fear — that Luther would compromise
with or else be crushed by the foreign oppressor, and wrote
urging him to stand fast and promising support : —

ULRICH VON HUTTEN TO LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

Mayknce, June 4, 1520.
Long live liberty! If anything hinders you from completing what
you have begun I shall mourn as a spiritual kinsman and friend.

74 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Christ be with us, as we bring his teachings again to light, you more
happily, but I at least according to my powers. May all be like-minded
with us or soon return to the right way. It is said that you are under
the ban of the Church. If this is so, how great are you, Luther, how
great ! . . . But beware ! You see that if you fall it will be a great
injury to the State, but I know from your actions that you are resolved
to die rather than merely live. ... Be strong ! But why should I
admonish you when I have no need ? In any event you have a sup-
porter in me and may confide your plans to me. Let us defend the
common freedom and liberty of our long enslaved fatherland ! We
have God on our side ; if he be for us, who can be against us ? . . .
Your letters will reach me in Brabant. Write me there and farewell
in Christ. Salute Melanchthon and Fach and all our friends, and fare-
well again.

Shortly after the arrival of this letter came one from an-
other leader of the party, Sylvester von Schaumburg, offering
protection in case of need. It seemed to Luther that this sup-
port came in the nick of time. Hutten had been correctly in-
formed that the bull against the heresiarch had been drawn up
at Rome. Cardinal Riario, a friend of Erasmus and a moderate,
had written the Elector from that city on May 20, urging him
as he valued his safety to " make that man recant." The letter
only reached the Elector on July 6, and was promptly forwarded
to Wittenberg. Luther's answer is eloquent of his attitude : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBUKG

Wittenberg, July 10, 1520.

... I almost wish that famous bull would come from Rome to
rage against my doctrine. . . .

I send the letter of the Franconian knight, Sylvester von Schaum-
burg, and unless it is too much trouble I wish the Elector would com-
municate its contents to Cardinal Riario, that they may know in Rome
that even if they thrust me out of Wittenberg with their furies they
will only make matters worse, since there are now some not only in
Bohemia but in the heart of Germany who are able and willing to re-
ceive me in spite of the thunders of the hostile Curia.

In this lies their danger ; for were I saved by those protectors I
should grow more terrible to the Romanists than I am now while
publicly teaching under the Elector's government. Doubtless this will

THE PATRIOT 75

happen unless God interpose. For hitherto I have given in on many-
points, even when enraged, out of respect to my sovereign, but then
there would surely be no need to consult his wishes. So let them know
that they owe it neither to my moderation nor to the success of their
own tyranny, but to the name and authority of the Elector, and to my
respect for the University of Wittenberg, that I have proceeded no
further against them.

My die is cast ; I despise the fury and favor of Rome ; I will never
be reconciled to them nor commune with them. Let them condemn
and burn my books. On my side, unless all the fire goes out, I will
condemn and publicly burn the whole papal law, that slough of
heresies. The humility I have hitherto shown all in vain shall have an
end, lest it still further puff up the enemies of the Gospel.

The more I think of Cardinal Riario's letter the more I despise it.
I see they write with cowardly fear and a bad conscience, trying to
put on a ferocious mien with the last gasp. They try to protect their
folly by force, but they fear they will not succeed as happily as they
have in times past. But I doubt not that the Lord will accomplish
his purpose through me (though I am a foul sinner) or through an-
other.

Farewell.

Martin Luther, Augustinian.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADDRESS TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY, THE BABYLONIAN

CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH, AND THE FREEDOM OF

A CHRISTIAN MAN. 1520.

The art of printing with movable types was invented about
1450 at Mayence, and spread with such marvellous rapidity
that before the end of the century every European country
from Ireland to Turkey, east and west, and from Norway to
Italy, north and south, had its own presses. The powerful
stimulus to progress furnished by this discovery has often been
pointed out ; this mighty engine for disseminating truth made
accessible to almost all what had before been the property of
comparatively few. The success of the Reformation, as of all
subsequent democratic and progressive movements, may be
largely attributed to it.

It is safe to say that Martin Luther was the first man to
make full use of the press as an agent for appealing to public
opinion. By means of it he won the support of a majority of his
countrymen as well as of many foreigners who could read Latin.
There were, of course, no newspapers, or other periodicals, but
to supply their want quantities of short pamphlets, and even of
letters, were poured forth from the printing-houses and eagerly
bought and read. A vast number of these were written by
Luther, a born pamphleteer, who may be said with some truth
to have created the German book trade, for before he began to
write, a majority of books printed in Germany were Latin, but
soon afterwards the scale turned rapidly and decisively in favor
of German. The exact figures will bring home the vivifying
effect of the new spirit. In 1518 there were only 150 German
works published, in 1519 the number rose to 260, in 1520 to
570, in 1521 to 620, in 1522 to 680, in 1523 to 935, and in 1524
to 990. In five years the output increased more than sixfold.

Luther was an extremely prolific author. His works, in num-

LITERARY WORK 77

ber more than four hundred, fill more than a hundred volumes.
He was also an extremely popular author. On February 14,
1519, Froben, the great Basel publisher, wrote him that his
works were already exported to France, Spain, Italy, the Low
Countries, and England, as well as to all parts of the Empire.
The number of the editions was legion. The letters of the
time are full of references to the latest publications of the
Keformer. On November 1, 1520, for example, Glarean writes
Zwingli from Paris that no books are bought more quickly than
Luther's, and that at the last Frankfort fair (the great book
mart of Germany held in the spring of every year) fourteen
hundred copies of his works had been sold. This was before
Luther had written any of his greatest works.

At first, as we have seen, the Wittenberg professor devoted
himself chiefly to commentaries on Scriptures, of which the
lectures on Romans and Galatians have already been noticed.
During the years 1519-21 he again took up the Psalms and pub-
lished in several parts a stout commentary on the first twenty-
one. These Operationes in Psalmos, as they were called, won
the admiration of Erasmus. They did not satisfy the author,
however, who feared that being in Latin they would not edify
the common people. While he was lecturing on them he wrote
a letter on the subject, from which, as it is almost unknown,
even to scholars, we will translate a portion, including the
observations on Melanchthon's work : * —

TO GERARD LISTRIUS AT ZWOLLE

Wittenberg, July 30 (1520).
. . . Philip is theologizing most happily, lecturing, as a first attempt,
and yet with incredible success to almost five hundred auditors on
Paul's Epistle to the Romans. ... I do not think that for a thousand
years Holy Scripture has been treated with the same simplicity and
clearness, for his talent is next that of the apostolic age. ... I lose
these years of mine in unhappy wars and would like all my works to
perish, lest they should become obstacles to pure theology and better
geniuses, although to-day I expound my philosophy without slaughter
and blood. It is my fate that all evil beasts attack me alone, all seek-
1 For text of this letter see Appendix in.

78 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ing to win the laurel and palm from me. God grant that I may be
David pouring out blood, but that Melanchthon may be Solomon reign-
ing in peace. Amen. . . .

I have completed my bulky commentary on the Psalms to the
xvnith, and have almost begun to be sorry for doing it, not on ac-
count of the labor, but because these works are so little popular and do
not capture many, nor have I yet decided whether to publish any more
(for it is the food of the perfect), and not rather treatises more easy
to be understood. . . .

Luther's sermons were often published shortly after their
delivery, especially if they had to do with some question of the
day. Such was the sermon on the ban already mentioned (1518),
and such was the sermon on the Lord's Supper advocating the
participation of the laity in the cup. This excited an outcry
from the preacher's enemies, especially Duke George and the
Bishop of Merseburg. Consequently Luther published an ex-
planation, which was considerably more radical than the original
homily : —

I published a sermon on the venerable sacrament of the altar [he
begins], in which I said that it seemed good that both bread and wine
should be given to any one that desired it. Here upon my dear friends,
who thirsted after my blood, thought they had me in a sack, and
bawled out : " We have won ! "

Another work of 1519 was the Tesseradecas, or Fourteen,
written to console the sick elector. The author classifies all
goods and ills in seven most original categories : those which
are over, under, before, behind, on the right, on the left, and
within one.

Not many months after completing this, Luther set his hand
to a little treatise on ethics, entitled Good Works. These are
taken up in the order of the Ten Commandments, the first and
greatest duty being faith.

Of all Luther's works the most eminent, next to his transla-
tion of the Bible, are three pamphlets written in the latter half
of 1520 : To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation on
the Improvement of the Christian Estate, A Prelude on the
Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and The Freedom of a
Christian.

TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY 79

The first of these is a rousing appeal to his countrymen to
right the many wrongs under which Germany suffers, especially
such as she endures from Roman tyranny. It was written under
the influence of the patriots, with whom the Reformer now made
common cause. The inspiration to write came largely from them,
and the sources of much in the work are found in the writings
of Hutten and Crotus Rubeanus, as well as in Erasmus' Dia-
logue of St. Peter and Julius II.1 Many things were also taken
from private letters and personal conversations with friends
who had been in Rome, especially a Dr. John von Wick, who
stopped at Wittenberg in June, 1520, on his way from Italy to
Hamburg. A far more important source is found in the Griev-
ances of the German Nation presented at the Diet of Augsburg
in 1518. But what Luther borrowed he made his own. He did
not need Hutten to make him a patriot nor the Grievances to
tell him what was rotten in the Empire. The book, like its
author's character, in which so many influences had been at
work, was not a mere aggregate of certain external elements,
but something new and original, fused by genius into a living
organism. It is a work of world-wide importance, at once pro-
phesying and moulding the future.

Luther dedicated the book to his colleague in the university,
Nicholas von Amsdorf, in a stirring preface dated June 23,
1520 : —

God's grace and peace. Honorable, worthy, dear friend ! The time
to keep silence is past and the time to speak has come, as Ecclesiastes
says. I have, according to our plan, brought together some proposi-
tions on the improvement of the Christian estate, and have addressed
them to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, to see whether
God will help his Church through the laity, since the clergy, to whom
such matters rather belong, has become entirely heedless of them. I am
sending them to you, worthy sir, to correct, and, at need, to improve.
I am well aware that people will not let me escape unblamed for hav-
ing esteemed myself too highly, in that I, a poor, despised man, dare
to address such great and noble persons on such important affairs, as
though there were no one in the world except Dr. Luther who could

1 Mentioned as a source of Knaake (Weimar), vi, 393, but wrongly attributed
to Faustus Andrelinus. Cf. F. M. Nichols : The Epistles of Erasmus (London,
1901-1904), ii, 446.

80 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

take on himself the care of the Christian estate, and give counsel to
such high and mighty persons. I do not excuse myself : let him blame
me who will. Perhaps I owe my God and the world some folly, which
I have now undertaken, as far as in me lies, to pay honestly, even if
it be to become court fool. If I cannot pay it, at least no one will dare
buy me a fool's cap or cut my comb, for he who fastens bells on his
neighbor keeps some for himself. I must fulfil the proverb that when-
ever the world has some work to be done, a monk must do it even if he
be ground to pieces by it. In times past fools have often spoken wisely
and the wise have often been great fools, as St. Paul says : If any man
would be wise, let him become a fool. As I am not only a fool, but a
doctor sworn to defend Holy Scripture, I am glad that I now have a
chance to discharge my oath, even if I do it in a foolish way. Please
excuse me to those who have moderate understanding, for I know not
how to deserve the favor of those who are wise beyond measure : I
have often tried to do it with great pains, but from henceforth will not
try nor care what they think. God help us to seek not our own but his
glory. Amen.

After this dedication the author commences with a compli-
ment to "the noble young blood Charles " and an appeal to him
to reform the grievances which weigh so heavily on all men. He
then goes on to show why it is that the laity have never been
able to bring the clergy to account : —

"The Romanists have built three walls about themselves with
great dexterity, with which they have hitherto protected themselves so
that no one has been able to reform them, and the whole of Christen-
dom has consequently declined. The first wall is that if the civil au-
thority presses them, they affirm that civil government has no rights
over them, but contrariwise spiritual over temporal. Secondly, if one
would punish them by the Bible, they oppose it by saying that no one
has a right to interpret the Bible except the Pope. Thirdly, if they are
threatened with a general council, they pretend that only the Pope has
the right to summon a council. So they have privily stolen three rods
from us, to remain unpunished, and they have entrenched themselves
in these three walls to do all rascality and evil. . . . May God now
give us one of the trumpets by which the walls of Jericho were thrown
down. ...

" The first wall consists in the discovery that the Pope, bishops,
priests, and monks are the spiiitual estate, whereas princes, lords, la-

TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY 81

borers, and peasants are of the temporal estate. . . . But all Christians
are really of the spiritual estate and there is no difference except of
office, . . . for we were all made priests by baptism ... a higher
consecration than any that Pope or bishop gives. But handling God's
Word and the sacrament is simply the work of the priest, bishop and
Pope, as bearing the sword and punishing evil is the work of the civil
magistrate. Even so cobblers, smiths and peasants — though conse-
crated priests and bishops — have their own work. Each one should
help his neighbor's body and soul as the members of the body serve
one another.

" Now one may see how Christian is their law that the temporal au-
thority has no right to punish the spiritual. That is as much as to say
that when the eye is suffering, the hand should do nothing for it. . . .
Wherefore the temporal powers of Christendom should freely exercise
their office, not regarding whether it is Pope, bishop, or priest that they
punish, but only that the guilty suffer.

" The second wall is still frailer and poorer, the claim, namely, that
they alone are masters of the Bible. Although their whole life long
they learn nothing in it, yet they presume to say that they alone un-
derstand it, and juggle with such words as that the Pope cannot err :
be he bad or good, one cannot teach him a letter ! It is for this reason
that so many heretical and unchristian, yes, unnatural laws stand in
the Canon Law. . . .

" The third wall falls of itself when the first two are down, for when
the Pope acts against Scripture, we are bound by Scripture to punish
and compel him." There is no Scriptural proof that the Pope only can
call a council : to assert this is like saying " if a fire break out in a city
every one should stand still and let it go on and burn as it pleases,
because the private citizens have not the power of the mayor, or be-
cause the fire started in the mayor's house. . . . No one in Christen-
dom has the right to do harm."

Now we will examine the articles which should properly be treated
by a council. If the Pope and bishops loved Christ, .they would busy
themselves with them day and night, but as they do not love Christ, let
the temporal power attend to them, not regarding the bans and thun-
ders of the clergy, for one unjust ban is better than ten just absolu-
tions and one unjust absolution worse than ten just bans. . . .

1. It is horrible and terrible that the Primate of all Christendom,
who boasts he is Christ's Vicar and St. Peter's follower, should live in
more worldly pomp than any king or emperor, and that he who is
called "most holy and spiritual" is really more worldly than the

82 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

world itself. The Pope should therefore he forced to live more
simply.

" 2. What is the use of that people in Christendom who are called
cardinals ? I will tell you. Italy and Germany have many rich clois-
ters, foundations, livings, and benefices which people do not know how
to turn to the profit of Rome better than by making cardinals and
giving them abbacies and bishoprics, though in so doing they trample
God's service under foot. ... I advise that the cardinals be reduced
in number, or else that the Pope support them from his own purse.
Twelve would be enough, with one thousand gulden ' a year."

3. The papal court should be reduced to one hundredth part of its
present size. Germany gives more to the Pope than to the Emperor.
The annates (one half the income of one year payable by all ap-
pointees of benefices) should be abolished, as well as raising money
by the Pope under pretext of the Turkish war. The numerous reserva-
tions of the Pope to appointments in certain months and to certain
livings should be curtailed. Palls should no longer be sold to arch-
bishops, and the habit of appointing old and sickly men to offices in
order to have a fresh vacancy soon should be stopped. Another crying
abuse is plurality ; Luther has heard of one man in Rome who holds
twenty-two livings, seven provostships and forty-four canonries. Simony
and the transfer of appointments under the fraudulent pretext of a
" mental reservation " on the part of the Pope is a sin and a shame.
In short, at Rome, " there is a buying and selling, a change and ex-
change, a crying and lying, fraud, robbery, theft, luxury, whoredom,
rascality, and despite of God in every way, so that it would not be
possible for Antichrist to outdo Rome in iniquity." There all things
are sold and all laws can be abrogated for money. " Let no one think
I exaggerate : it is public ; they cannot deny it." If I want to fight
the Turks, the worst Turks are those in Italy.

" Now, though I am too little to propose articles for the reformation
of such things, yet will I sing my fool's game to the end and say, as
much as my reason is able, what might and should be done by the
temporal power or a general council."

1. Each prince should forbid annates.

2. No foreigners should be allowed to take benefices.

3. An imperial law should be made that no ecclesiastic should go to
Rome to get any dignity and that whoever appealed to Rome should
lose his office.

1 Five hundred dollars; in purchasing power worth about twenty times as
much.

TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY 83

4. No legal cause should be appealed to Rome.1

5. There should be no more papal reservations.

6. There should be no more " casus reservati." (Legal actions
which could only be heard in Rome.)

7. The Pope should abolish most offices and support the rest himself.

8. Bishops should be invested by the civil magistrate as in
France and not obliged to swear allegiance to the Pope.

9. The Pope should claim no authority over the Emperor, whom he
should crown only as a bishop does a king. It is ridiculous for the
Pope to claim that when the Empire is vacant he inherits it. The
Donation of Constantine is an unexampled lie.

10. The Pope should give up his pretensions to Naples and Sicily.

11. Kissing the Pope's foot and other silly signs of respect should
be abolished.

12. There should be no more pilgrimages to Rome, especially in the
years of jubilee. No one should undertake any pilgrimage without
the consent of his pastor.

13. The begging friars are a curse. Many monasteries should be
suppressed and no more founded. It would be an excellent thing if
the inmates were allowed to leave when they pleased u as in the time
of the apostles and long after."

" 14. We see how it has happened that many a poor priest is bur-
dened with wife and child and wounded in his conscience and yet no
one does aught to help him. ... I advise that it be left free to every
man to marry or not as he chooses. . . . Those who live together as
man and wife are surely married before God."

15. It is a shame that in the cloisters abbots and abbesses make
their brothers and sisters confess their secret sins and then persuade
them that they are going to hell.

16. Vigils and private masses should be abolished or reduced in
number.

" 17. Certain pains and penalties provided by the Canon Law must
be done away, especially the interdict which was doubtless invented
by the evil spirit. For is it not the devil's work to mend a sin by doing
greater sin ? And is it not an enormous sin to stop all divine services ? "

18. All saints' days and holidays should be done away except Sun-
days, for now they are only spent in drunkenness, gaming, and idle-
ness.

19. Marriages between distant relations should be allowed, as their

1 Compare these provisions with the English statutes of Provisors and Prae-
munire.

84 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

prohibition is only a means of the Pope getting money. Fasts should
be left free.

20. Shrines and chapels in fields and woods should be taken down.
Pilgrimages to them cause all kinds of disorders. It makes no difference
if miracles are performed at these shrines, " for were there no other
sign that these are not of God, this would be enough, that men flock
to them like cattle without reason." If the authorities refuse to abate
these nuisances let every man resolve not to be deceived by them.

21. One of the greatest needs is that begging should be prohibited
throughout Christendom. Each city should take care of its own poor,
and nothing should be given to sturdy pilgrims, and friars. u There is
no other trade in which there is so much rascality and cheating as
mendicancy."

22. Foundations and canonries should be reduced to a small number
in the cathedrals which would serve to support children of the nobility.
Pluralities should be forbidden.

23. Religious brotherhoods and such things should be abolished.
Papal commissaries ought to be chased out of the country.

24. It is high time that some effort be made to heal the Bohemian
schism. It should be granted that Huss and Jerome of Prague were
wrongly burned. \ " If I knew that the Beghards had no other error
about the sacrament of the altar except the belief that it was natural
bread and wine, though the flesh of Christ were in it, I would not cast
them out, but let them live under the Bishop of Prague, for it is not an
article of faith to believe that natural bread and wine are not in the
sacrament — which is a delusion of Aquinas and the Pope — but
merely to believe that true and natural flesh and blood are in the bread
and wine. . . . "

" 25. The universities need a good, stiff reform ; I must say it, let it
offend whom it may. ... It is my advice that the books of Aristotle,
— Physics, Metaphysics, The Soul, and Ethics, — which have hitherto
been esteemed the best, be entirely removed from the curriculum,
together with all others which boast that they teach natural science,
although from them one learns neither natural nor spiritual things.
No one has ever understood Aristotle's meaning, and yet this study
is kept up to waste time and burden the soul. I venture to think that
a potter has more natural science than is contained in all those books.
It is a sorrow to my heart that that cursed (verdammte), arrogant,
rascally heathen has made fools of so many of the best Christians. God
has plagued us thus for our sins. In his best book, On the Soul, Aris-
totle teaches that the soul dies with the body. . . . There is no worse

TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY 85

book than his Ethics, which goes directly counter to God's grace and
Christian virtue. . . . But I would gladly allow Aristotle's books on
Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics to be kept, at least in an abbreviated form
without elaborate commentaries. . . . Besides these studies I recom-
mend Latin, Greek, Hebrew, mathematics, and history. . . .

u The schools of medicine I will allow to reform themselves, but
take the schools of law and theology to myself. To the former I say
that it were good that the whole Canon Law, from the first to the last
letter, especially the Decretals, were eradicated. More than enough
law is to be found in the Bible. . . . And moreover the law of the
Church nowadays is not what is written in the books, but whatever the
Pope or his followers want. . . . God help us ! What a wilderness
the Civil Law has become ! Although it is much better and wiser than
the Canon Law — in which, except God's name, there is nothing good
— yet there is far too much of it. . . . It seems to me that the laws
of each State of the Empire should have precedence over the Imperial
law, which should only be used in case of need. Would to God that
each land had its own short law as each has its special nature and
gifts."

In the schools of divinity the Bible should be supreme, and other
works be duly subordinated.

Each city should have schools for boys and girls, where the gospel
should be read to them either in Latin or German.

26. It should no more be taught that the Pope, having transferred
the Empire to the Germans, has superiority over the Emperor.1

27. It is now time to speak of some things amiss in the civil polity,
having thoroughly treated the abuses of the Church.

Sumptuary laws should be passed restraining extravagance in dress.
" But the greatest misfortune to Germany is usury. ... A bridle
should be put in the mouth of the Fuggers and such companies, who
make from twenty to one hundred per cent on their money annu-
ally." It would be better to increase agriculture and diminish com-
merce.

It is shameful that Christians should allow brothels. The chief
sinners in these places are the clergy. No man should therefore be
allowed to vow celibacy before thirty.

This brief analysis of Luther's greatest work can give but
a faint idea of the cause of its tremendous and immediate pop-

1 This article, which repeats the substance of the ninth, was not in the first
edition.

86 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ular success. This lay in the seasonableness of the strong words,
which expressed what every one was thinking and what all
desired. In timeliness and popularity it might be compared
with Uncle Tom's Cabin, though in dignity of treatment and
creative thought it is far above that excellent novel.

Luther's vehemence offended some even of his best friends.
Lang went so far as suggesting that the work be recalled a few
days after its appearance, early in August. His letter met with
the following response : —

TO JOHN LANG AT ERFURT

Wittenberg, August 18, 1520.

Greeting. Dear Father, is my pamphlet, which you term a trumpet-
blast, really so fierce and cruel as you and all others seem to think ?
I confess it is free and aggressive, and yet it pleases many and does
not even much displease our court. I am not able to determine my
own place in the present movement ; perhaps I am the harbinger of
Melanchthon, for whom I shall, like Elias, prepare a way in spirit
and in power, troubling Israel and the followers of Ahab. But to
return to my book — good or bad it is no longer in my power to recall
it. Four thousand copies have already been printed and sent away,
nor could I cause Lotther, the publisher, the loss he would sustain in
recalling these. If I have sinned, we must remedy it by prayer.

We are here persuaded that the papacy is the seat of the true and
genuine Antichrist, against whose deceit and iniquity we think all
things are lawful unto us for the salvation of souls. For myself, I do
not admit that I owe any obedience to the Pope, unless I also owe it
to the Antichrist. Think of these things, do not judge us rashly, for
we have reason for our opinion.

Melanchthon is going to marry Catharine Krapp, for which people
blame me ; I do the best I can for the man, nothing moved by the
clamor of all ; may God make all turn out well.

From my heart I hate that man of sin and son of perdition, with
all his kingdom, which is nothing but sin and hypocrisy.

Yours,

Brother Martin Luther.

A letter, written the next day to another friend, is interest-
ing, as giving Luther's justification for the vehemence of his

TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY 87

language, which has given offence not only in his own day but
later.1

TO WENZEL LINK AT NUREMBERG

(Wittenberg,) August 19, 1520.
Greeting. I do not do it [speak violently], dear Father, to get praise
and honor by my books and writings, for almost all condemn my acri-
mony ; but I agree with you that perhaps God exposes the impostures
of men in this way. I see that whatever is treated mildly in our age
soon falls into oblivion, for no one minds it. But the womb of Rebecca
must bear strife and infants contending with each other. The present
judges badly; posterity will judge better. Even Paul calls his ad-
versaries now dogs, now the concision, now babblers, false workers of
miracles, ministers of Satan, and things of that sort, and curses a whited
wall to his face. What prophet does not use the bitterest invective ?
Such language becomes so trite that it ceases to move. Our Reverend
Father Vicar 2 wrote me yesterday from Erfurt asking me not to pub-
lish my work on the Improvement of the Christian Estate ; I know
not on what ground complaint was made to him, at any rate his letter
came too late, after the book had appeared ; pray try and appease
him when you see him. Who knows if it be not the Spirit who moves
me with this ardor, since it is certain that I am not carried away by

1 It is instructive to compare Luther's defence with that made by Milton more
than a century later, on the same charge. " If therefore the question were one of
oratory, whether the vehement throwing out of scorn and indignation upon an
ohject that merits it, were among the aptest ideas of speech to he allowed, it were
my work, and that an easy one, to make clear both by the rules of the best rhet-
oricians and the famousest examples of Greek and Roman orators. But since the
religion of it is disputed and not the art ..." many examples of such language
may be cited from the Bible. " Yet that ye may not think inspiration the only
warrant thereof, but that it is as any other virtue, of moral and general observa-
tion, the example of Luther may stand for all . . . who writ so vehemently
against the chief defenders of the old untruths in the Romish Church, that his
own friends and favorers were offended with the fierceness of his spirit." Milton
goes on to show that when Luther betook himself to moderation he got only
despite from Cajetan and Eck, " and herewithal how useful and available God
made this tart rhetoric in the Church's cause, he often found by his own experi-
ence. . . . And this I shall easily aver, though it may seem a hard saying, that
the Spirit of God, who is purity itself, when he would reprove any fault severely,
or but relate things said or done with indignation by others, abstains not from
some words not civil at other times to be spoken." Various citations of indecent
expressions used by God are given, among others, 1 Kings xiv, 10. Cf. Apology
for Smectymnuus.

8 Lang, who had been elected Vicar in Staupitz's place, 1520.

88 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

love of glory or of money or of pleasure, much less by vindictiveness ?
I do not wish to stir up rebellion but only to assert the freedom of a
general council.

Farewell in the Lord. Your brother,

Martin Luther.

Luther's second great reforming pamphlet, The Prelude to
the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, followed hard on the
first, appearing early in October. The former tract had been
directed against the practical abuses of the Church ; this was
a blow at the base of her theology, the sacramental system.
The thoughts expressed in it were old ones to the writer, but
were put with fresh force, energy, and comprehensiveness. The
Address to the Nobility had been written in German as an ap-
peal to the mass of that nation ; the Babylonian Captivity was
composed in Latin, and translated against its author's will, for
it was meant primarily for theologians and scholars. A brief
analysis of its ninety pages, as nearly as possible in the original
words, will give the best idea of its contents : —

Willy nilly, I am daily forced to become more learned, with so
many and such able teachers pressing me on and giving me exercises.
I wrote of indulgences two years ago,1 but in such a way that I now
greatly repent having published that book. For at that time I stuck
in a sort of superstitious reverence for the tyranny of Rome, wherefore
I did not think that indulgences should be altogether reprobated, since
they were approved by the common opinion of mankind. It was no
wonder that I thought so, for I alone rolled this rock away. But later,
by the kindness of Prierias and his brothers, who strenuously defended
indulgences, I understood that they were nothing but a mere imposture
of the Pope's flatterers, alike destructive to men's faith and fortunes.
Would that I could persuade all booksellers and all who have read
my books on them to burn what I then wrote and substitute this pro-
position : —

INDULGENCES ARE THE INIQUITIES OF THE POPE'S FLATTERERS

After this, Eck and Emser with their allies forced me to learn
the nature of the Pope's primacy. Not to be ungrateful to such learned
men, I acknowledge that their books have moved me a great way
1 The Resolutions.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY 89

forward. For previously, while denying that the papacy was of divine
right, I admitted it as a thing of human law. But now that I have
read the most subtle subtilties of those little coxcombs (Trossuli) by
which they ingeniously forged their idol, not being unteachable in such
matters I have learned and am certain that the papacy is th« kingdom
of Babylon and the power of Nimrod the mighty hunter. Wherefore
in this case also I beg all my booksellers and readers that having
burned what I have hitherto written on this matter they should hold
to this proposition : —

THE PAPACY IS THE MIGHTY HUNTING OF THE ROMAN BISHOP

Giving the cup to the laity at communion is enjoined by the Bible
and forbidden by the Pope ; wherefore I shall proceed to show that
they are wicked who deny the sacrament in both kinds to laymen. In
order to do this more conveniently, I shall sing a prelude on the
captivity of the Roman Church.

In the first place I deny that the sacraments are seven in num-
ber, and assert that there are only three, baptism, penance, and the
Lord's Supper, and that all these three have been bound by the Roman
Curia in a miserable captivity and that the Church has been deprived
of all her freedom. Howbeit, should I wish to speak according to the
usage of Scripture, I should say that there was only one sacrament
and three sacramental signs. . . .

Before summarizing Luther's criticisms of the Roman sacra-
mental system, it may conduce to clearness to give the briefest
possible account of that system. Sacramentum in Latin means
a sacred thing and by the early fathers was applied to a num-
ber of holy objects, for example, the cross of Christ. It soon
came to have the more special meaning that it now bears, that
of a rite of the Church to which a spiritual meaning is attached,
the two distinguishing characteristics of a sacrament being an
outward sign and a promise. Thus the rite of distributing the
bread and wine, with the promise of forgiveness, constituted
the eucharist, the immersion or sprinkling with water, with
the promise of salvation (Mark xvi, 16), is baptism. In like
manner confession and forgiveness (James v, 16) were made
the sacrament of penance, and the anointing of the sick with
oil for his recovery and forgiveness (James v, 14 and 15) be-
came the sacrament of supreme unction. Confirmation and

90 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

orders had the same sign, the laying on of hands, but with a
different purpose, the first to strengthen a layman in his faith,
the other to impart the spiritual character to a priest (Acts vi,
6; xiii, 3; 1 Tim. iv, 14; 2 Tim. i, 6). Finally marriage was
made a sacrament for two peculiar reasons. Peter Lombard,
who first formulated the doctrine (circa 1100), was, like many
ancient and mediaeval philosophers, much under the obsession
of sacred numbers. Having as yet but six sacraments, he wished
to complete the sacred seven by the addition of another, and
hit upon matrimony, which is not a specially Christian institu-
tion at all, but one common to all mankind. St. Paul compares
the union of man and wife with that of Christ and the Church,
which, says he, is a great mystery (i. e., holy secret), a Greek
word translated in the Latin Vulgate sacramentum (Eph. v,
31 and 32). It was this misunderstanding of Paul's meaning
that induced Lombard to include wedlock among the holy rites
of the Church. It is not necessary to go deeply into Luther's
criticisms of this theology, but a brief summary of his most
interesting remarks is valuable for the insight it gives into his
doctrine : — •

Eucharist. The first " captivity " (i. e., abuse) of this sacra-
ment is the denial of the cup to the laity. The second is the
doctrine of transubstantiation. (On Luther's nearly allied
theory " consubstantiation," compare above in the Address to
the Nobility, article 24, and below, chapter xxi.) The third
abuse is the theory that the mass is a good work, whereas it is
really a commemoration.

Baptism. God has preserved this rite from abuse, but the
glory of the freedom whereunto we are baptized has been cap-
tured by the Roman Church. All other vows are a disparage-
ment of the baptismal vow.

Penance. The first and capital abuse of this sacrament is
they have entirely abolished it (i. e., repentance), denying that
faith is necessary.

Luther adds that " strictly speaking " penance is not a sacra-
ment, there being only two. The remaining four he thinks have
no right to be considered sacraments in any sense. In discuss-
ing matrimony he makes several digressions, some of which are

THE LIBERTY OF A CHRISTIAN MAN 91

rather shocking to our ears. For example, he proposes that
a woman married to an impotent man be allowed, under certain
conditions, to cohabit with another. Again : "I so detest di-
vorce that I prefer bigamy, but whether divorce is ever allow-
able or not I dare not say." More will be said of this peculiar
view when on later occasions Luther advised two sovereigns to
take second wives rather than put away their first ones.

Such is the second of the three great pamphlets, which, like
its predecessor, created an enormous stir. Erasmus judged that
it precluded all possibility of peace, and Henry VIII of Eng-
land, as well as a host of less distinguished persons, answered it.
On the other hand, the mass of the people welcomed it eagerly,
and the doctrines it taught have become fundamental to all the
reformed systems of theology.

The Address to the Nobility and the Babylonian Captivity
had treated of external abuses, the one in the State, the other
in the Church ; the third pamphlet, On the Liberty of a Christ-
ian Man (or, in the first Latin edition, On Christian Liberty),
went far deeper to the inner life of the spirit. The occasion for
writing this work was an earnest request of the officious peace-
maker, Charles von Miltitz, for Luther to send a letter to the
Pope saying that " he had never meant to twit him personally."
The Reformer complied ; a few extracts from this missive, com-
posed in the latter half of October, are interesting : —

Of your person, excellent Leo, I have heard only what is honorable
and good . . . but of the Roman See, as you and all men. must know,
it is more scandalous and shameful than any Sodom or Babylon, and,
as far as I can see, its wickedness is beyond all counsel and help, hav-
ing become desperate and abysmal. It made* me sick at heart to see
that under your name and that of the Roman Church, the poor people
in all the world are cheated and injured, against which thing I have
set myself and will set myself as long as I have life, not that I hope
to reform that horrible Roman Sodom, but that I know I am the
debtor and servant of all Christians, and that it is my duty to counsel
and warn them. . . .

Finally, that I come not before your Holiness without a gift, I
offer you this little treatise, dedicated to you as an augury of peace
and good hope ; by this book you may see how fruitfully I might em

92 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ploy my time, as I should prefer to, if only those impious flatterers of
yours would let me. It is a little book as respects size, but if I mis-
take not, the whole sum of a Christian life is set down therein, in
respect to contents. I am poor and have nothing else to send you* nor
do you stand in need of any but my spiritual gifts.

The little pamphlet of thirty pages, published early in No-
vember in both Latin and German, begins with a paradox : —

" A Christian man is the most free lord of all, subject to none.

" A Christian man is the dutiful servant of all, subject to every one.

" These statements seem to conflict, but when they are found to
agree they will edify us. For both are contained in that saying of
Paul's (1 Cor. ix, 19), * For though I be free from all men, yet have
I made myself servant unto all.' You owe nothing but to love one an-
other, for true love, by its nature, is dutiful and obedient to what it
loves. Thus also Christ, although Lord of all, yet was made a man
under the law, free and a servant, at the same time in the form of
God and in that of a slave."

A man consists of a double nature, spiritual and corporal ; and
these two are contrary, the spirit fighting the flesh and the flesh the
spirit. " But it is clear that external things have no effect on Christ-
ian liberty. . . . For what can it profit the soul if the body is well,
free and lively, eats, drinks, and does what it pleases, since even the
wickedest slaves of all vice often have these advantages ? Again, how
can ill health or captivity or hunger or thirst hurt the soul, since the
best men and those of the purest conscience often suffer these things ?
. . . Nor does it profit the soul to have the body clad in priestly gar-
ments, nor hurt her to have it clothed as a layman. . . .

" One thing only is needful to a good life and Christian liberty, the
gospel of Christ. . . . Perhaps you ask : What is this Word of God
and how is it to be used, since there are many words of God ? . . ."
Faith is the sole salutary and efficacious use of God's Word, for the
Word is not to be grasped or nourished with any works, but with faith
only. One incomparable grace of faith is that it joins the soul to
Christ as the bride to the bridegroom, by which mystery, as the
apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Who is able
to prize this royal marriage enough, or comprehend the riches of this
grace ?

Not only are we most free kings of all, but we are priests forever,
by which priesthood we can appear before God, pray for one another
and teach one another. " Here you ask, ' If all Christians are priests,

THE LIBERTY OF A CHRISTIAN MAN 93

by what name shall we distinguish those whom we call clergy from the
laity ? ' I answer : By those words ' priest/ ' clergyman,' ' spiritual,'
1 ecclesiastic ' an injury is done, since they are transferred from all
Christians to a few. Scripture makes no distinction but to call them
ministers, servants, and stewards, who now boast that they are popes,
bishops, and lords. But although it is true that all are priests, all are
not equally able to teach publicly, nor ought all who are able so
to do. . . ."

Now let us turn to the second part and see how the master of all
must become the ministering servant to all. When the soul has been
purified by faith, she greatly desires to purify all things and espe-
cially her own body, and thus naturally brings forth the good works
by which without faith she could not be justified. " Good works do
not make a good man, but a good man produces good works, and so
with bad works." Let us not despise good works, but rather teach and
encourage them, only guarding against the false opinion that they
make a man just. We conclude, therefore, that a Christian does not
live to himself, but to Christ and his neighbor, to Christ by faith, to his
neighbor by love. By faith he is snatched above himself to God ; by
love he falls below himself to his neighbor, yet always dwelling in
God and his love.

This is properly the close of the work, but a postscript is
added on the course a Christian should pursue in regard to cere-
monies. The rule is first obedience to God's command and then
charity to his neighbor. He should take a middle course, not
tolerating any real abuse but not over-hasty to do away with
ceremonies innocent in themselves.

The three great reforming pamphlets not only had a great
influence in their own day, rallying the whole of Germany to
their author's side at the time of trial, but they have a lasting
importance in literature and thought. In them the whole
Lutheran movement is epitomized : the first in relation to the
State, the second as bearing on the Church, and the third,
the most fundamental of all, as laying down the new rule
for the guidance of the individual.

Before closing this chapter it is interesting to note an item
in the Reformer's personal life, recalled long afterwards : —
In 1520 our Lord God tore me forcibly from saying the canonical

94 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

prayers, for I wrote so much that I often missed them for a week to-
gether, and on Saturday frequently made up for lost time by saying
them one after another, so that I could neither eat nor drink the
whole day. Thus I weakened myself so that I could not sleep, and
Dr. Esch had to give me a sleeping-powder, the effects of which I still
feel in my head.

CHAPTER IX

THE BURNING OF THE CANON LAW AND OF THE POPE'S
BULL. 1520

r . '

The action against Luther for heresy at Rome had been al-
lowed to sleep since the beginning of 1519 on account of the
exigencies of politics. The death of the Emperor Maximilian
in January of that year made necessary the election of a suc-
cessor. Of the three principal candidates Leo X preferred
the Elector of Saxony, who, it was thought, would make both the
weakest and most docile Emperor. Frederic was so highly
esteemed for his personal qualities that he might have stood a
good chance of the election, but feeling that the position would
be too great for his resources, he did not press his own cause,
but threw his great weight into the scale for the Hapsburg can-
didate against the Valois. It was, perhaps, largely due to his
efforts that on June 28, 1519, Charles of Spain was chosen.

After this event had wrecked the hopes of the Curia, and
especially after the Leipsic debate bjCd* brought Luther's heresy
into a stronger light than ever before, the process against the
Saxon was renewed. Another effort was made to induce the
Elector to give him up ; indeed Saxony was threatened with the
interdict in case he did not comply, though later events showed
that the Pope hardly dared to use such a drastic measure. The
threat did not succeed ; Frederic replied in his usual courteous
and procrastinating style that Miltitz had undertaken to bring
Luther's case before the Archbishop of Trier for judgment, and
that the Curia had no right to threaten the ban and interdict
before the result of this attempt at reconciliation was known.

This letter worked like a declaration of war. A consistory
was held at Rome on January 9, 1520, in which Ghinnucci, who
had charge of Luther's case, thundered against the peaceful,
pious prince as a raging tyrant, the enemy not only of the clergy
but of the whole Christian religion.

96 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

The Pope at once appointed a commission, consisting of
Cajetan, Accolti, the general and procurators of the Dominican
and Franciscan orders, and others, to draw up a bull against
the heretic. Except the first two they were all but poor theo-
logians, but making up in zeal what they lacked in knowledge,
they proceeded in short order to damn all Luther's propositions
as rank heresy. Leo, being advised by the wiser heads among
the cardinals that such a sweeping position would be untenable,
dissolved the first commission in February and appointed a
second, consisting of Cajetan, Accolti, the generals of the orders,
and some of the best theologians in Rome. This body, proceed-
ing more cautiously, drew up a report carefully distinguishing
a number of propositions as " partly heretical, partly scandalous,
and partly offensive to pious ears." They recommended that
a bull be drawn up condemning these propositions without men-
tioning Luther's name, and that a final summons be sent him
to come to Rome and recant. In other words, they held that
a peaceful solution of the problem was still possible. Following
their advice, Leo commanded Volta to write to Staupitz asking
him to force his brother to recant. Whether Staupitz tried to
obey this letter of March 15, 1520, is not known ; but in the
following August he resigned his office in the order and shortly
after secured a dispensation to become a Dominican.

Towards the end of March a sudden and decisive change in
the papal policy was caused by the arrival of Eck. Since the
great debate this zealous Catholic had been busy going around
to the universities trying to get them to decide in his favor and
condemn Luther ; two of them, Cologne and Louvain, did so.
Eck then turned his steps to Rome, where he painted his enemy's
heresy in such black colors that Leo decided there was nothing
left but to condemn him, and accordingly appointed a third
commission, of Cajetan, Eck, Accolti, and the Spanish Augus-
tinian Johannes, with orders to draft a bull for this purpose.
Accolti was the draftsman for the committee; the theological
material was largely supplied by Eck from the condemnation of
Luther's doctrines by the University of Louvain.

The bull was presented for ratification before a consistory
held on May 21, which decided, before promulgating the docu-

THE BURNING OF THE POPE'S BULL 97

ment, to hear the theologians who had drawn it up. This was
done in three sittings of May 23, May 25, and June 1. No
record of debates in these consistories has been published, but
the fact is recorded that there were long arguments before the
bull received the assent of the College of Cardinals. It is pos-
sible that a peace party was against the use of force even at
this late stage, but it is more probable that the opposition came
from a Spanish cardinal, Carvajal, who belonged to the con-
ciliar party in the Church and was offended by the designation
of Luther's appeal to a council as heretical. Whatever opposi-
tion there was, however, was finally overcome, the bull was
ratified and signed by Leo at his hunting-lodge at Magliana on
June 15.

According to the provision of the Canon Law, that before a
heretic is finally condemned he must be given a fatherly warn-
ing, this bull, Exsurge Domine, does not excommunicate Luther,
but only threatens this penalty in case he does not recant within
sixty days after its publication in Germany. Beginning with
the words : "Arise, Lord, plead thine own cause, arise and pro-
tect the vineyard thou gavest Peter from the wild beast who is
devouring it," the bull sets forth some of the professor's opinions,
quoted apart from their context, designates them as "either
heretical, or false, or scandalous, or offensive to pious ears, or
misleading to the simple," and condemns them. If, after all
the Pope's fatherly care and admonition, Luther does not recant
within sixty days after the posting of the bull in Germany, he
is to be declared a stiff-necked, notorious, damned heretic, and
must expect the penalties due to his crime.

Before this document was ratified, Cardinal Raphael Riario
had written the Elector, May 20, urging him to force the heretic
to recant or expect the consequences. The letter only arrived on
July 6, and, as we have seen (p. 74), made a great impression
upon the Wittenberg professor. Frederic answered it quite
promptly, enclosing An Offer or Protestation (Oblatio sive
Protestatio), drawn up by Luther, proposing to leave his doc-
trine to the arbitrament of impartial judges. This arrived in
Rome by the end of July.

Eck, who had been so instrumental in drawing up the bull,

98 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

was commissioned to post it in Germany. Before he had done
so, however, the document had been published there (August)
by Ulrich von Hutten, who judged that it would injure the
Church more than her enemy. Eck posted it officially at
Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg near the end of Septem-
ber. He also tried to force it on the universities of Germany,
many of whom declined to receive it on technical grounds. At
Wittenberg the faculty would have nothing to do with it, and
at Erfurt the students seized all the printed copies and threw
them into the river.

Having threatened the heretic with excommunication, Rome
left no stone unturned to secure his condemnation by the Empire.
Charles was coming from Spain to be crowned in October, 1520,
and to hold his first diet at Worms early in 1521. To him and
to the nation Leo dispatched two nuncios, Aleander and
Caracciola. Leaving Rome on July 27, 1520, Aleander arrived
in Cologne, where he published the bull on September 22. Four
days later he was in Antwerp, and on September 28, he had
an audience with Charles and secured from him the first decree
against Luther and his followers in the Netherlands. On Octo-
ber 8, the indefatigable legate published the bull at Louvairi
and solemnly burned the condemned books, at the same time
making a speech violently attacking Erasmus, who lived there,
for supporting the heretic. For this Aleander was scored in a
bitter anonymous satire — the Acta Academise Lovaniensis —
which may have come from the pen of the great humanist. On
October 17, the nuncio did at LiSge what he had done at
Lou vain.

Charles was crowned Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle on Octo-
ber 23. The plague breaking out in the overcrowded town, the
royal suite, including the legate, was forced to leave soon after,
and went to Cologne, where they arrived on October 28. Here
they found the Elector Frederic, who, having started to attend
the coronation, had been detained by an attack of gout. He
had posted up Luther's Offer and Protestation, and had with
him a letter from the monk to the Emperor, written about
August 31. It is a humble appeal : —

THE BURNING OF THE POPE'S BULL 99

That I dare to approach your Most Serene Majesty with a letter,
most excellent Emperor Charles, will rightly cause wonder to all. A
single flea dares to address the king of kings. But the wonder will
be less if the greatness of the cause is considered, for as truth is
worthy to approach the cause of celestial Majesty, it cannot be un-
worthy to appear before an earthly prince. It is a fair thing for
earthly princes, as images of the heavenly Prince, to imitate him, as
they also sit on high, but must have respect for the humble things of
the earth and raise up the poor and needy from the mire. Therefore
I, poor and needy, the unworthy representative of a most worthy
cause, prostrate myself before the feet of your Most Serene Majesty.

I have published certain books, which have kindled the hatred and in-
dignation of great men against me, but I ought to be protected by you
for two reasons : first, because I come unwillingly before the public, and
only wrote when provoked by the violence and fraud of others, seeking
nothing more earnestly than to hide in a corner, and secondly, be-
cause, as my conscience and the judgment of excellent men will
testify, I studied only to proclaim the gospel truth against the super-
stitious traditions of men. Almost three years have elapsed, during
which I have suffered infinite wrath, contumely, danger, and whatever
injuries they can contrive against me. In vain I seek respite, in vain
I offer silence, in vain propose conditions of peace, in vain beg to be
better instructed ; the only thing that will satisfy them is for me to
perish utterly with the whole gospel.

When I had attempted all in vain, I hoped to follow the precedent
of Athanasius and appeal to the Emperor. ... So I commend my-
self, so I trust, so I hope in your Most Sacred Majesty, whom may
our Lord Jesus preserve to us and magnify for the eternal glory of
his gospel. Amen.

Again on October 3, 1520, Luther had written Spalatin : —

Many think I should ask the Elector to obtain an imperial edict in
my favor, declaring that I should not be condemned nor my books
prohibited except by warrant of Scripture. Please find out what is in-
tended ; I care little either way, because I rather dislike having my
books so widely spread, and should prefer to have them all fall into
oblivion together, for they are desultory and unpolished, and yet I do
want the matters they treat of known to all. But not all can separate
the gold from the dross in my works, nor is it necessary, since better
books and Bibles are easily obtainable.

100 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

It was in accordance with the plan here indicated that on
October 31 the Elector had a conference with the Emperor in
the sacristy of the cathedral, and the latter promised that he
would allow Luther the way of the law which the professor
himself had proposed.

On Sunday, November 4, the legates also obtained an audi-
ence with Frederic. Aleander handed him a letter certifying
that he was commissioned by the Pope, and demanded, first,
that the heretic's books be burned, and second, that he. be
either punished by Frederic or delivered up bound. The next
day the Elector sent for Erasmus, who happened to be in the
city, and asked him if Luther had erred. For answer he re-
ceived the winged word, which flew to the farthest ends of
Germany : " Yes. He has erred in two points, in attacking the
crown of the Pope and the bellies of the monks." The learned
humanist drew up twenty-two short propositions which he
called Axioms, stating the best solution of the difficulty would
be for the Pope to recommend the decision of the matter to a
tribunal of learned and impartial men. On a second interview
with the nuncios on November 6, Frederic refused their re-
quests and insisted on such a court as Erasmus had recom-
mended.

The time given Luther to recant expired on one of the last
days of November. Instead of doing so, however, he hit back
at his oppressors with his usual spirit. He first published two
short manifestoes, Against the New Bull forged by Eck, — for
like Erasmus he doubted the genuineness of the document, —
and Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist. But his most
dramatic answer was solemnly to burn the bull along with the
whole Canon Law. The notice to the students, drawn up and
posted by Melanchthon on the early morning of December 10,
reads as follows : —

Let whosoever adheres to the truth of the gospel be present at nine
o'clock at the church of the Holy Cross outside the walls, where the
impious books of papal decrees and scholastic theology will be burnt
according to ancient and apostolic usage, inasmuch as the boldness of
the enemies of the gospel has waxed so great that they daily burn the

THE BURNING OF TFE POPE'S 3ULL ■ 101

evangelic books of Luther. Come, pious and zealous youth, to this
pious and religious spectacle, for perchance now is the time when the
Antichrist must be revealed !

At the set time a large crowd gathered just outside the Elster
gate, near the Black Cloister, but beyond the walls ; the stud-
ents built a pyre, a certain " master," probably Melanchthon,
lighted it, and Luther threw on the whole Canon Law with the
last bull of Leo X, whom he apostrophized in these solemn
words: " Because thou hast brought down the truth of God, he
also brings thee down unto this fire to-day. Amen." * Others
threw on works of the schoolmen and some of Eck and Emser.
After the professors had gone home, the students sang funeral
songs and disported themselves at the Pope's expense.

Luther now justified his act by publishing an Assertion of
All the Articles Condemned by the Last Bull of Antichrist, which
appeared in Latin in December, 1520, and in German in March,
1521. In this he states that his positions have not been refuted
by Scripture in the bull — whether that document is genuine or
not. But if one cannot found his creed on the Bible now, he
adds, why did Augustine have the right to do it eleven hundred
years ago ? He then takes up, one by one, the forty-one articles
condemned and proves that they are right. In view of later de-
velopments the most interesting of these proofs is that of the
36th article, on free will. Since the fall of man, says the Wit-
tenberg professor, free will is simply a name ; when a man does
what is in him he sins mortally. He cites Augustine to the effect
that free will without grace is able to do nothing but sin. He
quotes many texts of the Bible to prove this point and argues it
at length.

Nothing was now left to the Church but to excommunicate
the rebel and fulfil the threat of the Exsurge Domine. The
" holy curse " was drawn up and signed at Rome on January 3,
1521, and sent to Aleander to publish in Germany. It banned
not only Luther but Hutten, Pirkheimer, and Spengler, and
denounced the Elector Frederic. The wise leg-ate received the
terrible document at the Diet of Worms, and rightly fearing

1 Quonian tu conturbasti veritatem dei, conturbat et te hodie in ignem istura,
amen. — Cf . Joshua vii, 25.

10?- THE LIFF AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

that in this form " it would prove destructive to the cause of
the Church," sent it back with a recommendation to modify it.
This was done ; in its final form the bull Decet Pontificem
Eomanum confined itself to excommunicating the heresiarch,
and was then, May 6, published at Worms, three weeks after
he had already been heard by the Diet.

CHAPTER X

THE DIET OF WORMS. 1521

From Cologne Charles V proceeded to Mayence and thence
to "Worms, where he was about to open his first diet. The varied
programme of the national assembly included the drafting of
a constitution for the Empire and the formulation of griev-
ances against the tyranny of the Roman hierarchy. It could
hardly hope to avoid the religious question then agitating the
whole nation, but the unprecedented course of summoning
the heretic to answer before the representatives of his nation
was not decided on until after the estates had been sitting for
a month.

Luther himself, in appealing to the Emperor, did not expect
to be called before the Diet ; he hoped to be allowed to defend
his doctrines before a specially appointed tribunal of able and
impartial theologians. This plan was pressed quietly but vigor-
ously by Erasmus, the foremost living man of letters. Besides
his action in urging Frederic to insist on such a trial for his sub-
ject, the great humanist had, at Cologne, handed to the coun-
sellors of the Emperor a short memorial, Advice of One heartily
wishing the Peace of the Church, proposing the appointment
of such a commission. He partly won over the Emperor's con-
fessor, Glapion, but Chidvres and Gattinara, the real powers be-
hind the imperial throne, remained in opposition. A little later
at Worms, John Faber, a Dominican friar, came forward with
a similar plan, composed with the help of Erasmus.

Such a solution of the difficulty would have been most dis-
tasteful to the Curia. Regarding the Wittenberg professor's
opinions as res adjudicatce, the Romanists saw no reason for
giving him a chance to defend them, and wished only to punish
the man already condemned. This course was urged by Alean-
der, an extremely able and unscrupulous diplomat. His chief
support was the young emperor, whose formal, backward mind

104 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

failed to comprehend and even detested any variation from the
faith in which he had been brought up. Though by no means
a fool, he was a dull man, slow to learn and slow to forget, but
possessed of two extremely valuable qualities, moderation and
persistence. Of the Lutheran affair he had no understanding
whatever. Not being able to speak German, he was unable to
sympathize with even the nationalist side of the formidable
movement. On May 12, 1520, Manuel, his ambassador at Rome,
suggested that he use Luther as a lever to wring concessions
from the Pope, but the idea found no root in his mind ; from
the first his opposition to the schismatic was a foregone con-
clusion.

Aleander worked with admirable diligence and consummate
ability to win powerful supporters among the electors and great
men of Germany. By skilful negotiation and concession he
secured the adhesion of Joachim I of Brandenburg, for many
years the leader of the Catholic party in Germany. He tried
hard to get the unqualified backing of Albert of Mayence by
the same means, but failed, partly because of the counter nego-
tiations of Erasmus and his friend Capito. The Elector of
Mayence therefore represented a mediating policy.

Aleander's strongest opponent was Frederic of Saxony,
"that fox and basilisk," as he called him, a crafty states-
man who knew well how to protect his obnoxious subject
without too deeply involving himself. Among the other mem-
bers of the college, the Elector Palatine was not unfavorable
to Luther.

The common people were strongly in favor of Luther. " Nine
tenths of the Germans," wrote Aleander, " shout * Long live
Luther,' and the other tenth 'Death to Rome.'" Foremost
among his adherents was Hutten, who with his followers hung
like a cloud near Worms, threatening to burst and sweep
away the Papists should any harm come to the bold monk of
Saxony.

When the alternative plan of Aleander to summon Luther,
not before an impartial tribunal to discuss his doctrines, but
before the estates to recant, was announced to him in Witten-
berg he wrote as follows : - —

THE DIET OF WORMS 105

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALLSTEDT

Wittenberg, December 21, 1520.

Greeting. To-day I received copies of your letter from Allstedt
and also of that from Kindelbrtick asking me what I would do were
I summoned before the Emperor Charles as my enemies wish, in case
I could go without danger to the gospel and the public safety.

If I am summoned I will go if I possibly can ; I will go ill if I
cannot go well. For it is not right to doubt if I am summoned
by the Emperor I am summoned by the Lord. He lives and reigns
who saved the three Hebrew children in the furnace of the king
of Babylon. If he does not wish to save me, my life is a little thing
compared to that of Christ, who was slain in the most shameful way,
to the scandal of all and the ruin of many. Here is no place to weigh
risk and safety ; rather we should take care not to abandon the gospel
which we have begun to preach to be mocked by the wicked, lest
we give cause to our enemies of boasting that we dare not confess
what we teach and shed our blood for it. May Christ the merciful
prevent such cowardice on our part and such a triumph on theirs.
Amen. . . .

It is certainly not for us to determine how much danger to the
gospel will accrue by my death. . . .

One duty is left for us : to pray that the Empire be saved from
impiety and that Charles may not stain the first year of his reign
with my blood or with that of any other. I should prefer, as I have
quite often said, to perish only at the hands of the Romanists so that
the Emperor may not be involved in my cause. You know what
nemesis dogged Sigismund after the execution of Huss ; he had no
success after that and he died without heirs, for his daughter's son
Ladislaus perished, so that his name was wiped out in one generation
and moreover his queen Barbara became infamous as you know, to-
gether with the other misfortunes which befel him. Yet if it be the
Lord's will that I must perish at the hands not of the priests but of
the civil authorities, may his will be done. Amen.

Now you have my plan and purpose. You may expect me to do
anything but flee or recant ; I will not flee, much less will I recant.
May the Lord Jesus strengthen me in this. For I can do neither with-
out peril to religion and to the salvation of many. . . .

In similar tone Luther wrote a month later to his best
patron.

106 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO THE ELECTOR FREDERIC OF SAXONY AT WORMS

Wittenberg, January 25, 1521.

Most serene, highborn Prince, most gracious Lord ! My poor prayers
and humble obedience are always at your Grace's service.

I have received with humble thankfulness and pleasure your Grace's
information about his Imperial and Royal Majesty's intentions regard-
ing my affair, and I humbly thank his Imperial Majesty and your
Grace for your favor. I rejoice from my heart that his Imperial Maj-
esty proposes to take up this business, which is rather God's, Christen-
dom's, and the German Nation's than mine or that of any individual.

I am humbly ready, as I always have been, and as I have often
said I would be (especially in a pamphlet recently published of which
I am sending your Grace a copy), to do and allow all that may be done
with God and Christian honor, or all which I shall be convinced by-
honorable, Christian, and sufficient reasons of Holy Writ that I ought
to do or allow.

Therefore I humbly pray your Grace to pray his Imperial Majesty
to provide me with sufficient protection and a free safe-conduct for all
emergencies, and that his Imperial Majesty should command the busi-
ness to be recommended to pious, learned, impartial Christian men,
both clerical and lay, who are well grounded in the Bible, and have
understanding of the difference between human laws and ordinances.
Let such men try me, and, for God's sake, use no force against me
until I am proved unchristian and wrong. Let his Majesty, as the
temporal head of Christendom, in the mean time restrain my adversa-
ries, the papists, from accomplishing their raging, unchristian plans
against me, such as burning my books and grimly laying snares for
my body, honor, well-being, life, and salvation, although I am unheard
and unconvicted. And if I, more for the protection of the divine, evan-
gelic truth, than for the sake of my own little and unworthy person,
have done aught against them, or shall be compelled to do aught, may
his Majesty graciously excuse my necessary means of protection, and
keep me in his gracious care to save the Divine Word. I now con-
fidently commit myself to the virtue and grace of his Majesty, and of
your Grace and all Christian princes, as to my most gracious lords.

And so I am, in humble obedience, ready, in case I obtain sufficient
surety and a safe-conduct, to appear before the next Diet at Worms and
before learned, pious, and impartial judges, to answer to them with the
help of the Almighty, that all men may know in truth that I have hitherto

THE DIET OF WORMS 107

done nothing from criminal, reckless, disordered motives, for the sake of
worldly honor and profit, but that all which I have written and taught
has been according to my conscience and sworn duty as a teacher of
the Holy Bible, for the praise of God and for the profit and salvation
of all Christendom and the advantage of the German nation, in order
to extirpate dangerous abuses and superstitions and to free Christen-
dom from so great, infinite, unchristian, damnable, tyrannical injury,
molestation, and blasphemy.

Your Grace and his Majesty will have an eye and a care to the
much troubled state of all Christendom ; as your Grace's chaplain I
am humbly and dutifully bound to pray God for his mercy and favor
on you and his Imperial Majesty at all times.

Your Grace's obedient, humble chaplain,

Martin Luther.

Now, if ever, Luther's plain heroism showed itself. Daily
expecting an awful crisis not only in his own life but in all that
he held dearer, he went quietly about his business, teaching,
preaching, and doing whatever his hand found to do. While
writing polemics " against ten hydras " his deeply untroubled
spiritual life found expression in a tract on the Magnificat, in
which Mary's canticle became again the song of the triumph of
the lowly and the meek. His determination to stand fast never
wavered ; he often quoted Christ's words that whoso denied his
Lord before men would be denied by him before his Heavenly
Father. While so firm himself, he was much saddened by the
irresolution of some of his friends, especially of his still beloved
and revered Staupitz. After laying down his office as Vicar of
the Augustinians, the old man had retired to distant Salzburg,
where the learned and orthodox archbishop, Cardinal Lang,
received him warmly. But even here he could not escape the
tumult of the battle ; for Lang tried hard to get him to denounce
Luther openly. On January 4, 1521, Staupitz wrote pathetic-
ally to Link, acknowledging that "Martin has undertaken a
hard task and acts with great courage illuminated by God ; I
stammer and am a child needing milk." Nevertheless but a
little later he wrote an open letter submitting himself to the
. judgment of the Pope, a document intended as a compromise
and as non-committal, but one which was generally taken as a

108 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

renunciation of the reformed teaching. On seeing the declara-
tion, Luther wrote Staupitz a letter equally solemn and gentle ;
he does not judge his old friend, but it is impossible not to feel
all the more strongly the contrast between the irresolution of
the one man and the unyielding courage of the other;

TO JOHN STAUPITZ AT SALZBURG

Wittenberg, February 9, 1521.

Greeting. I wonder, reverend Father, that my letters and pamphlets
have not reached you, as I gather from your letter to Link that they
have not. Intercourse with men takes so much of my time that preach-
ing unto others I have myself become a castaway. . . .

At Worms they have as yet done nothing against me, although the
papists contrive harm with extraordinary fury. Yet Spalatin writes
the Evangelic cause has so much favor there that he does not expect
I shall be condemned unheard. . . .

I -have heard with no great pain that you are attacked by Pope Leo,
for thus the cross you have preached to others you may exemplify
yourself. I hope that wolf, for you honor him too much to call him
a Lion (Leo), will not be satisfied with your declaration, which will be
interpreted to mean that you deny me and mine, inasmuch as you
submit to the Pope's judgment.

If Christ love you he will make you revoke that declaration, since
the Pope's bull must condemn all you have hitherto taught and believed
about the mercy of God. As you knew this would be the case, it seems
to me that you offend Christ in proposing Leo for a judge, whom you
see to be an enemy of Christ running wild (debacchari) against the
Word of his grace. You should have stood up for Christ and have con-
tradicted the Pope's impiety. This is not the time to tremble but to cry
aloud, while our Lord Jesus is being condemned, burned, and blas-
phemed. Wherefore as much as you exhort me to humility I exhort you
to pride. You are too yielding, I am too stiff-necked.

Indeed it is a solemn matter. We see Christ suffer. Should we keep
silence and humble ourselves ? Now that our dearest Saviour, who gave
himself for us, is made a mock in the world, should we not fight and
offer our lives for him ? Dear father, the present crisis is graver than
many think. Now applies the gospel text : " Whosoever shall confess
me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels
of God, but whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, of him
shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his glory."

THE DIET OF WORMS 109

May I be found guilty of pride, avarice, adultery, murder, opposition
to the Pope, and all other sins rather than be silent when the Lord
suffers and says : " I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there
was no man that would know me : refuge failed me ; no man cared
for my soul." By confessing him I hope to be absolved from all my
sins. Wherefore I have raised my horns with confidence against the
Roman idol, and the true Antichrist. The word of Christ is not the
word of peace but the word of the sword. But why should I, a fool,
teach a wise man ?

I write this more confidently because I fear you will take a middle
course between Christ and the Pope, who are now, you see, in bitter
strife. But let us pray that the Lord Jesus with the breath of his
mouth will destroy this son of perdition. If you do not wish to, at least
let me go and be bound. With Christ's aid I will not keep still about
this monster's crimes before his face.

Truly your submission has saddened me not a little, and has shown
me that you are different from that Staupitz who was the herald of
grace and of the cross. If you had said what you did, before you knew
of the bull and of the shame of Christ, you would not have saddened
me.

Hutten and many others write strongly for me and daily those songs
are sung which delight not that Babylon. Our elector acts as con-
stantly as prudently and faithfully, and at his command I am publish-
ing my Defence x in both languages. . . .

In the mean time Luther's enemies were not idle. Aleander
addressed the Diet on February 18, painting the new heresy in
the blackest colors, touching lightly on the points with which
the Germans would sympathize, but bearing his whole weight
on certain opinions relative to the sacrament which would shock
most of them, and demanding, in conclusion, that proper steps
be takeu to extirpate the impending schism and its author.
After a stormy debate the Estates decided to summon Luther to
recant the objectionable heresies, and to be questioned on cer-
tain other points, those, namely, relative to the power of the
Pope and the grievances of the German nation. The Emperor
accordingly drew up a formal summons, addressing the excom-
municated man as " honorable, dear, and pious," giving as the

1 The Articles Wrongly Condemned by the Bull appeared in Latin in January
and in German in March.

110 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

purpose of the citation " to obtain information about certain
doctrines originating with you and certain books written by you,"
and assuring certain safe-conduct to and from the Diet. Charles
also endeavored to get the Diet to pass a decree for the burning
of the heretic's books, but failing in this, he issued a mandate
on his own responsibility directing that they be delivered up to
the magistrate and no more copies be printed.

Even now an attempt was made by the party of mediation to
obtain a declaration from Luther which would obviate the neces-
sity of his appearance before the Diet. Glapion, the Emperor's
confessor, possibly acting at the suggestion of Erasmus, held a
friendly interview with Spalatin in which he pointed out that
all might be amicably settled if Luther would repudiate a few
articles. These he had drawn from the Assertion of all the
Articles Wrongly Condemned, and from the Babylonian Captiv-
ity ; the latter he thought might be the more easily given up, as
the book had appeared anonymously. When these articles were
forwarded by Spalatin, the Wittenberg professor replied as
follows : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT WORMS

Wittenberg, March 19, 1521.
Greeting. I have received the articles they ask me to recant, with
the list of things they want me to do. Doubt not that I shall recant
nothing, as I see that they rely on no other argument than that I have
written (as they pretend) against the usages and customs of the Church.
I shall answer the Emperor Charles that if I am summoned solely for
the sake of recantation I shall not come, seeing that it is all the same
as if I had gone thither and returned here. For I can recant just as
well here if that is their only business. But if he wishes to summon
me to my death, holding me an enemy of the Empire, I shall offer to
go. I will not flee, Christ helping me, nor abandon his Word in the
battle. I am assuredly convinced that those bloody men will never rest
until they slay me. I wish if it were possible that only the Pope's fol-
lowers should be guilty of my blood. We are turned heathen again as
we were before Christ, so firmly does Antichrist hold the kingdoms
of this world captive in his hand. The Lord's will be done. Use your
influence, where you can, not to take part in this council of the

ungodly. ...

Martin Luther, Augustinian.

THE DIET OF WORMS 111

The expected summons and safe-conduct reached Luther on
March 26. After quietly finishing some literary work, he set
out, on April 2, accompanied by his colleague Amsdorf, a bro-
ther monk, and a talented young student named Swaven. Horses
and wagon were provided by the town, and the university voted
twenty gulden to cover the necessary expenses. The journey
was a triumphal progress ; the people thronged to see the bold
asserter of the rights of conscience. At Erfurt, where Luther
preached, he was given a rousing reception by the students and
their professor, the humanist Eoban Hess. Notwithstanding
popular sympathy, there was considerable danger in going to
Worms : in spite of an imperial safe-conduct, Huss had been
burned. When Spalatin wrote reminding his friend of this pre-
cedent, he received the following answer : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT WORMS

Frankfort on the Main (April 14), 1521.

I am coming, dear Spalatin, even if Satan tries to prevent me hy
a worse disease than that from which I am now suffering, for I have
been ill all the way from Eisenach, and am yet ill, in a way I have not
hitherto experienced.

I know that the mandate of Charles has been published to terrify me.
Truly Christ lives and I shall enter Worms in the face of the gates of
hell and the princes of the air. I send copies of the Emperor's sum-
mons. I think better not to write more until I can see on the spot
what is to be done, lest perchance I should puff up Satan, whom I
propose rather to terrify and despise. Therefore prepare a lodging.

Martin Luther.1

Finding that Luther was not to be intimidated, the Cath-
olics, who were more frightened than he was, tried by a strata-
gem to prevent his appearance or at least to delay it until the
time granted had expired. The Emperor's confessor, Glapion,

1 Spalatin says in his Annalen {edition of Cyprian, 1718, p. 38) that Luther
wrote him from Oppenheim, where he arrived April 15, that he would enter
Worms if there were as many devils there as tiles on the roofs. It is probable that
Spalatin was thinking- of this letter, or some expression used at another time (cf.
Tischreden, ed. by Forstemann and Bindseil, iv, 34S), as it is almost inconceivable
that he, who preserved so many of his friend's letters, should have lost this im-
portant one.

112 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

in an interview with Sickingen, Hutten, and Bucer, assumed a
friendly attitude, and proposed that instead of exposing himself
to the danger of an appearance the heretic should hold a private
conference with himself in a neighboring castle. Bucer was
dispatched with this proposition. Luther knew no way but the
direct one, however, and proceeded.

On the morning of April 16 he arrived at his destination,
greeted by a vast concourse of people, and took up his abode in
the hostel of the Knights of St. John. He was summoned to the
Diet the next day at four o'clock, though he was not admitted
until nearly six.

Few moments in history have been at once so dramatic and
so decisive as that in which Luther appeared before the Emperor
and Diet at Worms. In the greatness of the tribunal, of the ac-
cused, and of the issues involved, nothing is lacking to impress
a thoughtful mind. In the foreground of the assembly sat the
young Emperor, on whose brows were united the vast, if shad-
owy, pretensions to Roman dominion and the weight of actual
sovereignty over a large congeries of powerful states. Around
him were the great princes of the realm, spiritual and temporal,
and the representatives of the Free Cities of Germany. The
nuncios, representing the supreme power of the Church, were
conspicuous by their absence ; the Pope would not even hear the
rebel in his own defence.

The son of peasants now stood before the son of Caesars : the
poor and till lately obscure monk before a body professing to
represent the official voice of united Christendom. To challenge
an infamous death was the least part of his courage : to set up
his own individual belief and conscience against the deliberate,
ancient, almost universal opinion of mankind required an audac-
ity no less than sublime.

And how much depended on his answer ! The stake he played
for was not his own life, nor even the triumph of this religion
or of that : it was the cause of human progress. The system
against which he protested had become the enemy of progress
and of reason : the Church had become hopelessly corrupt and
had sought to bind the human mind in fetters, stamping out in
blood all struggles for freedom and light. Hitherto her efforts

THE DIET OF WORMS 113

had been successful : the Waldenses had perished ; Wieliffe had
spoken and Huss had died in vain. But now the times were ripe
for a revolution ; men only needed the leader to show them the
way.

The proceedings were short and simple. An officer first warned
the prisoner at the bar that he must say nothing except in
answer to the questions asked him. Then JohnJEck, Official of
Trier (not to be confounded with the debater of the same name),
asked him if the books lying on the table were his and whether
he wished to hold to all that he had said in them or to recant
some part. At this point Jerome Schurf, a jurist friendly to
the Wittenberg monk, cried out : "Let the titles of the books
be read." When this had been done, Luther replied : —

His Imperial Majesty asks me two things, first, whether these books
are mine, and secondly, whether I will stand by them or recant part of
what I have published. First, the books are mine, I deny none of them.
The second question, whether I will reassert all or recant what is said
to have been written without warrant of Scripture, concerns faith and
the salvation of souls and the Divine Word, than which nothing is
greater in heaven or on earth, and which we all ought to reverence ;
therefore it would be rash and dangerous to say anything without
due consideration, since I might say more than the thing demands or
less than the truth, either of which would bring me in danger of the
sentence of Christ. "Whoso shall deny me before men, him will I also
deny before my Father in heaven." Wherefore I humbly beg your
Imperial Majesty to grant me time for deliberation, that I may answer
without injury to the Divine Word or peril to my soul.

After consulting the Emperor and his advisers, Eck replied :

Although, Martin, you knew from the imperial mandate why you
were summoned, and therefore do not deserve to have a longer time
given you, yet his Imperial Majesty of his great clemency grants you
one day more, commanding th,at you appear to-morrow at this time and
deliver your answer orally and not in writing.

Though Luther knew the general reason of his summons, he
had been surprised by the form in which the question was put
to him. He had expected that certain articles would be brought
forward and that he would have an opportunity to state the

114 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

reasons why he held them and to defend them in debate. When
he was required to recant point-blank, without any chance to
present his case and without hearing what particular things he
was to recant, he was taken unprepared. Seeing how necessary
it was to have his answer in exact form, he had only done the
wisest thing. Some, however, inferred from his request and from
the low tone in which it was uttered, that his spirit was broken.
How little this was the case may be seen by a letter written the
same evening to an imperial counsellor and humanist at Vienna,
John Cuspinian. After leaving the assembly hall, Luther went
to his lodgings, where he was visited by nobles and others who
wished him well. Among them was George Cuspinian, a canon
of Wiirzburg, who had followed his bishop to the Diet. He gave
such warm assurances of good-will from his cousin, the more
noted John, that the Reformer found time to acknowledge
them : —

TO JOHN CUSPINIAN AT VIENNA1

Worms, April 17, 1521.

Greeting. Your brother,2 most famous Cuspinian, has easily per-
suaded me to write to you from the midst of this tumult, since I have
long wished to become personally acquainted with you on account of
your celebrity. Take me, therefore, into the register of your friends,
that I may prove the truth of what your brother has so generously
told me of you.

This hour I have stood before the Emperor and Diet, asked whether
I would revoke my books. To which I answered that the books were
indeed mine, but that I would give them my reply about recanting
to-morrow, having asked and obtained no longer time for considera-
tion. Truly, with Christ's aid, I shall never recant one jot or tittle.
Farewell, my dear Cuspinian.

1 The text of this letter is full of mistakes in all the printed editions, includ-
ing Enders, iii, 122. A facsimile of the original in the archives of Vienna was
published by T. Haase in the Leipziger Illudrierte Zeitung for August 31, 1889,
and the text printed by me in American Journal of Theology, April, 1910.

2 Frater carnis tuse. I follow Haase in identifying this brother with Cus-
pinian's cousin. Professor G. Kawerau suggested to me in conversation that
Luther's words would naturally mean " brother-in-law." Cuspinian had a brother-
in-law (brother of his first wife) named Ulrich Putch, and a brother, Niklas
Spiessheimer. Cf . H. Ankwicz : " Das Tagebuch Cuspinians," Archiv fur oster-
reichische Geschichtsforschung, xxx (1909), 304 and 325.

THE DIET OF WORMS 115

The following day he appeared at the same hour before the
august assembly. Eck addressed him in an oration of which
the following summary is given by one present, probably
Spalatin : —

His Imperial Majesty has assigned this time to you, Martin
Luther, to answer for the books which you yesterday openly acknow-
ledged to be yours. You asked time to deliberate on the question
whether you would take back part of what you had said or would
stand by all of it. You did not deserve this respite, which has now
come to an end, for you knew long before why you were summoned.
And every one — especially a professor of theology — ought to be so
certain of his faith that whenever questioned about it he can give
a sure and positive answer. Now at last reply to the demand of his
Majesty, whose clemency you have experienced in obtaining time to
deliberate. Do you wish to defend all of your books or to retract part
of them ?

Luther, now certain of what to say, made a great oration, at
first in German and then in Latin, the substance of which, as
written down by himself immediately afterwards, is here trans-
lated : —

Most Serene Emperor, Most Illustrious Princes, Most Clement Lords !
At the time fixed yesterday I obediently appear, begging for the
mercy of God, that your Most Serene Majesty and your Illustrious
Lordships may deign to hear this cause, which I hope may be called
the cause of justice and truth, with clemency ; and if, by my inex-
perience, I should fail to give any one the titles due him, or should
sin against the etiquette of the court, please forgive me, as a man who
has lived not in courts but in monastic nooks, one who can say nothing
for himself but that he has hitherto tried to teach and to write with
a sincere mind and single eye to the glory of God and the edification
of Christians.

Most Serene Emperor, Most Illustrious Princes ! Two questions
were asked me yesterday. To the first, whether I would recognize
that the books published under my name were mine, I gave a plain
answer, to which I hold and will hold forever, namely, that the books
are mine, as I published them, unless perchance it may have happened
that the guile or meddlesome wisdom of my opponents has changed
something in them. For I only recognize what has been written by
myself alone, and not the interpretation added by another.

116 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

In reply to the second question I beg your Most Sacred Majesty
and your lordships to be pleased to consider that all my books are not
of the same kind.

In some I have treated piety, faith, and morals so simply and ev-
angelically that my adversaries themselves are forced to confess that
these books are useful, innocent, and worthy to be read by Christians.
Even the bull, though fierce and cruel, states that some things in my
books are harmless, although it condemns them by a judgment simply
monstrous. If, therefore, I should undertake to recant these, would it
not happen that I alone of all men should damn the truth which all,
friends and enemies alike, confess ?

The second class of my works inveighs against the papacy as
against that which both by precept and example has laid waste all
Christendom, body and soul. No one can deny or dissemble this fact,
since general complaints witness that the consciences of all believers
are snared, harassed, and tormented by the laws of the Pope and the
doctrines of men, and especially that the goods of this famous Ger-
man nation have been and are devoured in numerous and ignoble
ways. Yet the Canon Law provides (e. g., distinctions ix and xxv,
quaestiones 1 and 2) that the laws and doctrines of the Pope contrary
to the Gospel and the Fathers are to be held erroneous and rejected.
If, therefore, I should withdraw these books, I would add strength to
tyranny and open windows and doors to their impiety, which would
then flourish and burgeon more freely than it ever dared before. It
would come to pass that their wickedness would go unpunished, and
therefore would become more licentious on account of my recantation,
and their government of the people, thus confirmed and established,
would become intolerable, especially if they could boast that I had
recanted with the full authority of your Sacred and Most Serene
Majesty and of the whole Roman Empire. Good God ! In that case
I would be the tool of iniquity and tyranny.

In a third sort of books I have written against some private indi-
viduals who tried to defend the Roman tyranny and tear down my
pious doctrine. In these I confess I was more bitter than is becoming
to a minister of religion. For I do not pose as a saint, nor do I dis-
cuss my life but the doctrine of Christ. Yet neither is it right for me
to recant what I have said in these, for then tyranny and impiety
would rage and reign against the people of God more violently than
ever by reason of my acquiescence.

As I am a man and not God, I wish to claim no other defence for
my doctrine than that which the Lord Jesus put forward when he was

THE DIET OF WORMS 117

questioned before Annas and smitten by a servant : he then said : If
I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. If the Lord himself, who
knew that he could not err, did not scorn to hear testimony against
his doctrine from a miserable servant, how much more should I, the
dregs of men, who can do nothing but err, seek and hope that some
one should bear witness against my doctrine. I therefore beg by
God's mercy that if your Majesty or your illustrious Lordships, from
the highest to the lowest, can do it, you should bear witness and con-
vict me of error and conquer me by proofs drawn from the gospels or
the prophets, for I am most ready to be instructed and when convinced
will be the first to throw my books into the fire.

From this I think it is sufficiently clear that I have carefully con-
sidered and weighed the discords, perils, emulation, and dissension ex-
cited by my teaching, concerning which I was gravely and urgently
admonished yesterday. To me the happiest side of the whole affair is
that the Word of God is made the object of emulation and dissent.
For this is the course, the fate, and the result of the Word of God, as
Christ says : " I am come not to send peace but a sword, to set a man
against his father and a daughter against her mother." We must con-
sider that our God is wonderful and terrible in his counsels. If we
should begin to heal our dissensions by damning the Word of God, we
should only turn loose an intolerable deluge of woes. Let us take care
that the rule of this excellent youth, Prince Charles ( in whom, next
God, there is much hope), does not begin inauspiciously. For I could
show by many examples drawn from Scripture that when Pharaoh and
the king of Babylon and the kings of Israel thought to pacify and
strengthen their kingdoms by their own wisdom, they really only
ruined themselves. For he taketh the wise in their own craftiness and
removeth mountains and they know it not. We must fear God. I do
not say this as though your lordships needed either my teaching or
my admonition, but because I could not shirk the duty I owed Ger-
many. With these words I commend myself to your Majesty and your
Lordships, humbly begging that you will not let my enemies make me
hateful to you without cause. I have spoken.

Eck replied with threatening mien : —

Luther, you have not answered to the point. You ought not to call
in question what has been decided and condemned by councils. There-
fore I beg you to give a simple, unsophisticated answer without horns
(non cornutum). Will you recant or not ?

118 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Luther retorted : —

Since your Majesty and your Lordships ask for a plain answer,
I will give you one without either horns or teeth.1 Unless I am
convicted by Scripture or by right reason ( for I trust neither in popes
nor in councils, since they have often erred and contradicted them-
selves) — unless I am thus convinced, I am bound by the texts of the
Bible, my conscience is captive to the Word of God, I neither can
nor will recant anything, since it is neither right nor safe to act
against conscience. God help me. Amen.

The Spaniards in the audience broke into groans and hisses,
the Germans into applause, and Luther was conducted from
the hall amid an incipient tumult. When he reached his lodg-
ings, he joyfully exclaimed : " I am through ! I am through ! "
He had indeed done the great deed he had set out to do and
spoken the words which will ring through ages.

But his business at Worms was not yet over. The moderate
Catholics, hoping that something could yet be accomplished,
held a series of conferences with him. Their representatives
were Cochlaeus, later one of the bitterest enemies of the Evan-
gelic Church, Dr. Vehus, chancellor of the Margrave of Baden,
and the Archbishop Elector of Trier. But nothing came of these
negotiations. Luther hardened himself, as one of his opponents
expressed it, like a rock.

On April 26 he left Worms. Two days later he reached
Frankfort where he wrote an interesting letter to Lucas Cranach,
his warm friend, the Wittenberg artist. In 1520 the monk had
stood godfather to the painter's little daughter, and in return
Cranach made two woodcuts of him, the one in 1520, the other
in March, 1521.2 This last, giving so plain an impression of
iron will and strength of character that all who run may read,
is perhaps the best portrait of the Reformer in existence.

1 Neque cornutum neque dentatura. These words, which have puzzled historians
from the day they were said till the present, have been the subject of a very thor-
ough investigation by R. Meissner. He comes to the conclusion that the dentatum
was suggested by the cornutum (without sophistry) of the official, but had no
special sense, being merely an " overtrumping," or improvement on his meta-
phor.

2 Referred to by Luther in a letter to Spalatin March 7. Enders, iii, 106. On
Luther's portraits see Appendix, pp. 453, 454.

THE DIET OF WORMS 119

TO LUCAS CRANACH AT WITTENBERG

Frankfort on the Main, April 28, 1521.

My service to you, dear friend Lucas. I bless and commend you to
God. I am going somewhere to hide, though I myself do not yet know
where. I should indeed suffer death at the hands of the tyrants,
especially at those of furious Duke George, but I must not despise the
advice of good men nor die before the Lord's time.

They did not expect me to come to Worms, and what my safe-con-
duct was worth you all know from the mandate that went out against
me. I thought his Majesty the Emperor would have brought together
some fifty doctors to refute the monk in argument, but in fact all they
said was : " Are these books yours ? " — " Yes." — " Will you re-
cant ? " — " No !" — u Then get out." O we blind Germans, we act so
childishly and let ourselves be fooled by the Romanists.

Give my friend your wife my greeting and say that I hope she is
well.

The Jews must needs sing at times in triumph, " Ho, ho, ho ! "
But Easter will come to us, too, and then we shall sing Hallelujah.
We must suffer and keep silence a little time. A little while and ye
shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me. At
least I hope so, but God's will, which is best, be done, as in heaven,
so on earth. Amen.

Greet Christian Doring and his wife. Please thank the town council
for providing the carriage. You must get Amsdorf to preach, as he
would be glad to do, if John Doltsch is not enough. Good-bye ! God
bless you and keep your mind and faith in Christ against the Roman
wolves and serpents and their adherents. Amen.

Dr. Martin Luther.

On May 1 he reached Hersfeld, where he was royally wel-
comed by the abbot of the Benedictine monastery and where he
preached. On May 2 he entered his dear old Eisenach, where
he also delivered a sermon the next day. On the third he drove
through the beautiful forests to Mohra, his father's early home,
and visited his uncle Heinz Luther. On the morning of May 4
he preached in the open air, and after dinner set out in the
direction of Schloss Altenstein with Amsdorf and a brother
monk. In the heart of the forest, in a place now marked by
a monument, according to 'a preconcerted plan some masked
riders appeared, captured the banned heretic, and rode with him

120 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

back in the direction of Eisenach to the Wartburg, the castle
in which the Elector had decided to keep him.

In the mean time great events were happening at Worms.
Charles had been sincerely shocked at the audacity of the rebel
monk. The usually reserved young man immediately drew up
a paper, perhaps the one frank and spontaneous action of his
whole career, stating that he had resolved to stake life, lands,
and all on the maintenance of the Catholic faith of his fathers.
Aleander, thinking that all was settled, was delighted. After
waiting until the Elector of Saxony and other supporters of the
new leader had left Worms, Charles drafted an edict, submitted
it for approval to four electors and a few remaining members of
the Diet, and signed it May 26 — although it was officially dated
May 8. The Edict of Worms described Luther's doctrine in the
strongest terms as a cesspool of heresies old and new, put him
under the ban of the Empire, forbade any to shelter him and
commanded all, under strong penalties, to give him up to the
authorities. It was also forbidden to print, sell, or read his
books.

When the news of Luther's disappearance spread throughout
Europe a cry of dismay arose from all who had his cause at
heart. Albert Diirer, the painter of Nuremberg, an ardent
admirer of the Reformer, then on a visit to Antwerp, heard the
news on May 17.

I know not whether he yet lives or is murdered [wrote he in his
diary], but in any case he has suffered for the Christian truth. . . .
If we lose this man who has written more clearly than any one who
has lived for one hundred and forty years, may God grant his spirit
to another. . . . His books are to be held in great honor and not
burned as the Emperor commands, but rather the books of his ene-
mies. O God, if Luther is dead, who will henceforth expound to us
the gospel ? What might he not have written for us in the next ten or
twenty years ?

Another glimpse of the temper of the people is given in an
obscure letter of Albert Burer, at Kemberg, near Wittenberg,
to Basil Amorbach, written June 30, 1521. The rustics, he says,
if they meet others on the road, inquire of them : " Bistu gutt
Marteinisch ? " and beat any one who answers in the negative.

CHAPTER XI

THE WARTBURG. MAY 4, 1521 -MARCH 1, 1522

The Wartburg, about a mile south of Eisenach, is one of the
finest old Gothic castles in Germany. Majestically crowning a
steep hill, it commands a superb view of the lovely Thuringian
forest. Surrounded by a moat and guarded by drawbridge and
portcullis, the several buildings which unite to make up the
pile are grouped around two courts. The largest hall, already
old in Luther's day, is famous as having been, in the twelfth
century, the meeting-place where the German bards, since
immortalized in Wagner's opera, met to contend the palm. The
fortress had been for generations the abode of the powerful,
ostentatious landgraves of Thuringia, and was hallowed by the
memory of St. Elizabeth of Marburg, the wife of one of them.

In this charming spot Luther remained hidden almost a
year, obeying the command of his wary sovereign. The room
assigned him was not in the main building, but in a small one.
It was reached by a narrow flight of stairs which led im-
mediately from the entrance to the chamber. It has been pre-
served as it was in his day, with the old stove, bedstead, table,
and stump which served as a stool. As he sat by the leaded
glass window, his eye swept the wild landscape for many miles
towards the west.

Shortly after his arrival, he wrote Spalatin a long and inter-
esting letter describing his journey, his capture, and his life
and work. The two former have been related in the last chap-
ter, but some other interesting items may well be given in his
own words : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT WORMS

The Mountain, May 14, 1521.
Greeting. I received your letter, dear Spalatin, and those of Gerbel
and Sapidus last Sunday, but have not written before for fear lest the
notoriety of my recent capture should cause some one to intercept the

122 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

letters. Various opinions of my disappearance are held in this region,
the most popular being that I was captured by friends from
Franconia.

To-morrow the Emperor's safe-conduct expires. I regret what you
write about their savage edict 1 for trying consciences, not so much
for my own sake as because they are inviting evil on their own heads
and will only succeed in making themselves odious. Such indecent
violence will only arouse deep hatred. But let it pass, perhaps the
time of their visitation is at hand. . . . We see that the people are
neither able nor willing — as Erasmus also wrote in his Advice 2 — to
bear the yoke of the Pope and the papists ; therefore let us not cease
to press upon it and to pull it down, especially as we have already
lost name and fame by so doing. Now the light reveals all things and
their show of piety is no longer valuable and cannot rule as hitherto.
We have grown by violence and driven them back by violence ; we
must see if they can be driven back any more.

I sit here lazy and drunken the whole day.

I am reading the Greek and Hebrew Bible. . . .

Now I have put off my old garments and dress like a knight, let-
ting hair and beard grow so that you would not know me — indeed I
have hardly become acquainted with myself. Now I am in Christian
liberty, free from all tyrannical laws, though I should have preferred
that that Dresden hog 8 had killed me publicly while preaching, had
God pleased that I should suffer for his Word. The Lord's will be
done ! Farewell and pray for me. Salute all the court.

Martin Luther.

Life at the castle was indeed a change from the routine of
Wittenberg. The disguised prisoner was attended by two pages
of gentle blood and by an armed guard. The warden, John von
Berlepsch, entertained him with distinguished courtesy. The
strict incognito did not prevent constant intercourse with friends,
not only by letters privately forwarded but by personal visits
also. He strolled through the woods searching for strawberries
and even hunted a little. Pity for the poor animals is an unex-

1 On April 30 the Emperor called the electors and princes together to consult
about an edict against Luther, which was not, however, signed until May 26.

2 Luther is probably referring to the Consilium cujusdam ex animo cupientis,
etc., though such strong views as these are hardly expressed therein.

8 Duke George of Albertine Saxony. Both here and in the letter to Cranach,
Luther does him wrong, for he advised observing the safe-conduct.

THE WARTBURG 123

pected and amiable trait in the sturdy peasant ; it is a matter of
course that St. Francis of Assisi should save a hare from the
trap,1 but it is almost surprising that Luther should do the same.
Most of his time, however, was spent in the little cell studying
the Bible and writing. His letters are full of his experiences,
and it is perhaps some of those translated below of which Cole-
ridge was thinking when he said he could hardly imagine a more
delightful book than Luther's letters, especially those written
from the Wartburg.2 His metaphysical tastes, however, may
have led him to prefer the discussions of knotty points in theo-
logy. His references to "the hearty mother tongue of the orig-
inal " and (in his table-talk) to " the racy old German" are
hardly happy, as most of the epistles are written in Latin : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT COBURG

Isle of Patmos, June 10, 1521.

... I am both very idle and very busy here, I study Hebrew and Greek
and write without cessation. The warden treats me far better than I
deserve. The trouble with which I suffered at Worms has not left me
but increased, for I am more constipated than I ever was and despair
of a remedy. The Lord thus visits me, that I may never be without
a relic of the cross. Blessed be he. Amen.

I wonder that the imperial edict is so delayed. In my retreat I
have read the letters against me sent to the estates of the Empire, but
I find them faulty.

It is rumored that Chievres 8 has died and left Charles a million
gulden. How brave is Christ not to fear these mountains of gold !
Would that they might learn once for all that he is the Lord our God.

I have not yet answered the young prince 4 for fear of revealing my
hiding-place, nor, for the same reason, do I think it expedient to do
so now.

Pray for me diligently. This is all I need, as other things abound.
Now that I am at rest I care not what they do with me in public.
Farewell in the Lord and greet all those whom you think it safe to greet.

Henricus Nesicus.5

1 Sabatier: Vie de St. Franqois d1 Assise, 9th ed., Paris, 1894, p. 204.

2 S. T. Coleridge : The Friend.

8 Guillaume de Croy, Seflor de Chievres, one of the Emperor's counsellors.
* John Frederic, nephew of the Elector and later Elector.
' This signature is an unexplained bit of humor.

124 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wartburq,) August 15, 1521.

Greeting. Dear Spalatin, I have received the second and third parts
of my Sermon on Confession from you and the first part from Me-
lanchthon. I cannot say how sorry and disgusted I am with the print-
ing. I wish I had sent nothing in German, because they print it so
poorly, carelessly, and confusedly, to say nothing of bad types and
paper. John the printer is always the same old Johnny. Please do
not let him print any of my German Homilies, but return them for me
to send elsewhere. What is the use of my working so hard if the errors
in the printed books give occasion to other publishers to make them
still worse ? I would not sin so against the gospels and epistles ; better
let them remain hidden than bring them out in such form. Therefore I
send you nothing now, although I have a good deal of manuscript ready.
I shall forward no more until I learn that these sordid mercenaries care
less for their profits than for the public. Such printers seem to think :
" It is enough for me to get the money ; let the readers look out for the
matter." . . .

Do not be anxious about my exile. It makes no difference to me
where I am. But I fear I may at length become burdensome to the
men here. I wish to cause expense to no one. I think I am living at
the bounty of the Elector, and could not stay another hour if I thought
I was consuming the substance of the warden, who serves me in all
things cheerfully and freely. You know if any one's wealth must be
wasted it should be that of a prince, for to be a prince and not a robber
is hardly possible, and the greater the prince the harder it is. Please
inform me on this point. I cannot understand this gentleman's liberality
unless he supports me from the Elector's purse. It is my nature to be
afraid of burdening people when perchance I do not, but such a scruple
becomes an honorable man.

Last week I hunted two days to see what that bitter-sweet * pleas-
ure of heroes was like. We took two hares and a few poor partridges
— a worthy occupation indeed for men with nothing to do. I even
moralized among the snares and dogs, and the superficial pleasure I
may have derived from the hunt was equalled by the pity and pain
which are a necessary part of it. It is an image of the devil hunting
innocent little creatures with his gins and his hounds, the impious

1 " y\vi<{nriKpov " one of the Greek words inserted as the author progressed in
his study of that language.

THE WARTBURG 125

magistrates, bishops and theologians. I deeply felt this parable of the
simple and faithful soul. A still more cruel parable followed. With
great pains I saved a little live rabbit, and rolled it up in the sleeve of
my cloak, but when I left it and went a little way off the dogs found the
poor rabbit and killed it by biting its right leg and throat through the
cloth. Thus do the Pope and Satan rage to kill souls and are not
stopped by my labor. I am sick of this kind of hunting and prefer to
chase bears, wolves, foxes, and that sort of wicked magistrate with
spear and arrow. It consoles me to think that the mystery of salva-
tion is near, when hares and innocent creatures will be captured rather
by men than by bears, wolves, and hawks, i. e.y the bishops and theo-
logians. I mean that now they are snared into hell, then they will be
captured for heaven. Thus I joke with you. You know that your
nobles would be beasts of prey even in paradise. Even Christ the
greatest hunter could hardly capture and keep them. I jest with you
because I know you like hunting.

I have changed my mind and have decided to send the rest of the
Homilies, thinking that as they are begun they had better be fin-
ished. . . .

The writer's ill health was due partly to the rich fare and
generally sedentary life, and partly, perhaps, to a reaction after
the terrible strain of the preceding weeks. It caused the tempta-
tions and especially the depression of which he often speaks.
Some have thought that it was also at the bottom of those
visions of the devil which are popularly supposed to have been
frequent at the Wartburg. The fact is, however, that not only
the legend of the inkstand hurled at the fiend, but every other
story about such visions receives not a particle of support from
contemporary sources. In all his letters from the Wartburg,
Luther never once mentions any supernatural experience, nor
even in his work On the Abuse of the Mass, where he makes
special mention of such apparitions in general, does he say one
word of his ever having seen any himself. That he occasionally
spoke of them long afterwards is due rather to an hallucination
of memory than of the senses at the time. He heard some noises
in the old spooky castle, so slight that he hardly noticed them,
but they gradually grew in memory, so that he could say, just
ten years later : —

126 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Satan has often vexed me with visions, especially at the Wartburg.
One night while I was there he took some walnuts from the table and
kept snapping them at the ceiling all night.

As he told this story over and over, it gradually expanded
with the years, until, in its final form, it assumed enormous
proportions. It is a striking illustration of the fallibility of
human memory and of the origin of ghost-stories, and demon-
strates once for all the worthlessness of the table-talk as an
historical source for events of long antecedent date. Indeed
only as an illustration of these points the story has interest.
It is so hopelessly confused, either by Luther or by the note-
taker, that John von Berlepsch, a bachelor, is given a wife, and
two rooms are spoken of, where there was, in reality, but one.
This was at the head of one flight of stairs, with no other
chamber near by. Thus it is that the story appears twenty-five
years after the visions it records : —

When I left Worms in 1521, I was captured near Eisenach, and
dwelt in the Wartburg, my Patmos. I was far from people, in a room
where no one could come to me but two boys of good family, who
brought me food and drink twice a day. Once they brought me a sack
of hazel nuts, which I ate from time to time. I kept them in a box.
When it was bedtime, I undressed in my study, put out the light,
went into my chamber, and lay down in bed. Then the hazel nuts
began, rose up one after another, hit the rafters hard and rattled on
the bed, but I did nothing. If I only began to drop off to sleep such
a noise started on the steps as if some one were rolling sixty barrels
down the stairs, yet I knew that the steps were closed with iron bars
so that no one could get to them. I got up, went to the stairs to see
what the matter was, and there they were locked up ! . . .

Later the wife of John von Berlepsch, who had heard that I was in
the castle, wanted to see me, came, but they would not let her see me.
But they took me to another room and the lady slept in my chamber.
There she heard such a racket in the room hard-by that she thought
a thousand devils were in it. The best way to drive out the fiend is
to despise him and call on Christ, for he cannot bear that. You should
say to him : " If you are lord over Christ, so be it ! " That- is what I
said at Eisenach.

Whatever may have been at the base of this astonishing tale,

THE WARTBURG 127

5t is certain that at the "Wartburg apparitions from the next
world did not interfere with an active participation in the busi-
ness of the present one. A lively interest in public affairs was
maintained by means of letters forwarded by Spalatin. Luther
did not feel called upon to set all the wrongs in the world right,
but he was strongly inclined to intervene when he heard of the
deeds of his old enemy, Albert of Mayence. During the summer
following the Diet of Worms, Carlstadt had carried on reform
measures at Wittenberg, especially insisting that the clergy
should take wives. Luther soon wrote in favor of this, but even
before his tract was published a number of priests accepted
Carlstadt's invitation to marry. Some of them in the jurisdic-
tion of Mayence were arrested by Archbishop Albert, though
that notoriously immoral prelate did not scruple to derive an
income from licenses to the clergy to keep concubines. At the
same time, thinking that there was no longer any danger, he
ventured to recommence the trade in indulgences in his capital,
Halle. When the Reformer heard of these things he wrote
a fierce and reckless tract, Against the Idol of Halle, which he
sent Spalatin to have printed. The Elector refused to allow
its publication for reasons of state, and after an angry protest,
Luther was forced to agree to postpone printing the obnoxious
tract until he had remonstrated privately with the offending
prelate : —

TO ALBERT, ARCHBISHOP AND ELECTOR OF MAYENCE

(The Wartbubg,) December 1, 1521.
My humble service to your Electoral Grace, my honorable and gra-
cious Lord. Your Grace doubtless remembers vividly that I have
written you twice before, the first time at the beginning of the indulg-
ence fraud ! protected by your Grace's name. In that letter I faith-
fully warned your Grace and from Christian love set myself against
those deceitful, seducing, greedy preachers thereof, and against their
heretical, infidel books. Had I not preferred to act with moderation
I might have driven the. whole storm on your Grace as the one who
aided and abetted the traders, and I might have written expressly
against their heretical books, but instead I spared your Grace and the
house of Brandenburg, thinking that your Grace might have acted
1 October 31, 1517, p. 42.

128 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

through ignorance, led astray by false whisperers, so I only attacked
them, and with how much trouble and danger your Grace knows.

But as this my true admonition was mocked by your Grace, ob-
taining ingratitude instead of thanks, I wrote you a second time,1
humbly asking for information. To this I got a hard, improper, un-
episcopal, unchristian answer,2 referring me to higher powers for
information. As these two letters did no good, I am now sending your
Grace a third warning, according to the gospel, this time in German,
hoping that such admonition and prayer, which ought to be superfluous
and unnecessary, may help.

Your Grace has again erected at Halle that idol which robs poor
simple Christians of their money and their souls. You have thus shown
that the criminal blunder for which Tetzel was blamed was not due to
him alone, but also to the Archbishop of Mayence, who, not regarding
my gentleness to him, insists on taking all the blame on himself.
Perhaps your Grace thinks I am no more to be reckoned with, but
am looking out for my own safety, and that his Imperial Majesty has
extinguished the poor monk. On the contrary, I wish your Grace to
know that I will do what Christian love demands without fearing the
gates of hell, much less unlearned popes, bishops, and cardinals. I will
not suffer it nor keep silence when the Archbishop of Mayence gives
out that it is none of his business to give information to a poor man
who asks for it. The truth is that your ignorance is wilful, as long
as the thing ignored brings you in money. I am not to blame, but your
own conduct.

I humbly pray your Grace, therefore, to leave poor people unde-
ceived and unrobbed, and show yourself a bishop rather than a wolf.
It has been made clear enough that indulgences are only knavery and
fraud, and that only Christ should be preached to the people, so that
your Grace has not the excuse of ignorance. Your Grace will please
remember the beginning, and what a terrible fire was kindled from a
little despised spark, and how all the world was surely of the opinion
that a single poor beggar was immeasurably too weak for the Pope,
and was undertaking an impossible task. But God willed to give the
Pope and his followers more than enough to do, and to play a game
contrary to the expectation of the world and in spite of it, so that the
Pope will hardly recover, growing daily worse and one may see God's
work therein. Let no one doubt that the same God yet lives and
knows how to withstand a cardinal of Mayence even if four emperors
support him. ...

1 February 4, 1520. a February 26, 1520.

THE WARTBURG 129

Wherefore I write to tell your Grace that if the idol is not taken
down, my duty to godly doctrine and Christian salvation will abso-
lutely force me to attack your Grace publicly as I did the Pope, and
oppose your undertaking, and lay all the odium which Tetzel once had
on the Archbishop of Mayence, and show all the world the difference
between a bishop and a wolf. . . .

Moreover I beg your Grace to leave in peace the priests who, to
avoid unchastity, have betaken themselves to marriage. Do not deprive
them of their God-given rights. Your Grace has no authority, reason,
nor right to persecute them, and arbitrary crime does not become a
bishop. ... So your Grace can see that if you do not take care, the
Evangelic party will raise an outcry and point out that it would be-
come a bishop first to cast the beam out of his own eye and put away
his harlots before he separates pious wives from their husbands. ...

I will not keep silence, for, though I do not expect it, I hope to
make the bishops leave off singing their lively little song. . . .

I beg and expect a right speedy answer from your Grace within
the next fortnight, for at the expiration of that time my pamphlet
against the Idol of Halle will be published unless a proper answer
comes. And if this letter is received by your Grace's secretaries and
does not come into your own hands, I will not hold off for that reason.
Secretaries should be true and a bishop should so order his court that
that reaches him which should reach him. God give your Grace his
grace unto a right mind and will.

Your Grace's obedient, humble servant,

Martin Luther.

The desired answer came. It is a proof of the great power
wielded by Luther, that, after the presentation of an ultima-
tum, the primate of all Germany should reply with abject
submission to the outlawed heretic. Albert was, indeed, in a
difficult situation, for, notwithstanding a rather non-committal
attitude at Worms he had been accused of having had Luther
assassinated, and stood in mortal terror of popular vengeance.
Both now and later, moreover, the Macchiavellian prelate sought
to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. While continu-
ing to cultivate the friendship of Rome he anxiously avoided
a breach with Wittenberg. He accordingly induced Capito, a
humanist in his employ, to intercede with the Reformer, to whom
he himself indited this astonishing missive : —

130 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO MARTIN LUTHER, IN CARE OP SPALATIN

Halle, December 21, 1521.
My dear doctor, I have received your letter and I take it in good
part and graciously, and will see to it that the thing that moved you
so be done away, and I will act, God willing, as becomes a pious,
spiritual, and Christian prince, as far as God gives me grace and
strength, for which I earnestly pray and have prayers said for me, for
I can do nothing of myself and know well that without God's grace
there is no good in me, but that I am as much foul mud as any other,
if not more. I do not wish to conceal this, for I am more than willing
to show you grace and favor for Christ's sake, and I can well bear
fraternal and Christian punishment. I hope the merciful, kind God
will give me herein more grace, strength and patience to live in this
matter and in others by his will.

Albert, with his own hand.

No wonder that the recipient was nonplussed by this letter,
doubting whether it showed more godly contrition or devilish
hypocrisy. The soft answer turned away his wrath, or rather
suspended it for a year, when the polemic against the Idol of
Halle came out in a revised form under the title, Against the
Estate of the Pope and Bishops falsely called Spiritual. This
bitter pamphlet attacks the " idol-worship " and vices of the
higher clergy without mercy.

Luther accomplished an enormous amount of literary work
during his year of hiding. One of his largest tasks was the
composition of the Postilla, or homilies on the gospel and
epistle for each Sunday.

More important in abiding results was the work on the celi-
bacy of the clergy. When Carlstadt, the Wittenberg radical,
came forward as the champion of marriage of priests, monks,
and nuns, Luther was by no means clear in his own mind about
the expediency of this practice. On August 6, 1521, he wrote
Spalatin : —

I have received Carlstadt's pamphlets. Good Heavens! will our
Wittenbergers give wives even to monks ? They won't force one on
me. . . . Farewell, pray for me and take care not to get married
for fear of tribulation of the flesh.

THE WARTBURG 131

And again on August 15 : —

How I wish that Carlstadt in attacking sacerdotal celibacy would
quote more applicable texts. I fear he will excite a prejudice against
it. . . . It is a noble cause he has taken up, I wish he were more
equal to it. For you see how clear and cogent we are forced to be on
account of our enemies, who calumniate even what is most perspicuous
and convincing in our arguments. Wherefore we, who are a spectacle
to the world, must take care that our words be above reproach, as Paul
teaches. Perhaps I am meddling with matters which are none of my
business, and yet they are my business, especially if he succeeds. For
what is more dangerous than to invite so many monks and nuns to
marry and urge it with unconvincing texts of Scripture, by complying
with which invitation the consciences of the parties may be burdened
with an eternal cross worse than they now bear. I wish that celibacy
might be left free, as the gospel requires, but how to add to that prin-
ciple I know not. But my warnings are in vain ; Carlstadt's career
will not be checked- and therefore must be endured.

Having convinced himself that the cause was noble, Luther
undertook to find adequate arguments in support of it. His
first essay in this direction was a mere sketch (Themata de votis),
a series of propositions on vows sent to Wittenberg for debate.
The thesis here presented is that all that is not done by faith is
sin, and that monastic vows are taken in reliance on good
works and not on faith, and therefore are wrong. Indeed it is
tantamount to vowing a life of impiety, and moreover it destroys
Christian liberty.

These thoughts took form in a treatise On Monastic Vows,
which the author dedicated to his father in the following
letter : —

TO HANS LUTHER AT MANSFELD

The Wilderness, November 21, 1521.

This book, dear father, I wish to dedicate to you, not to make your
name famous in the world, for fame puffeth up the flesh, according to
the doctrine of St. Paul, but that I might have occasion in a short
preface as it were between you and me to point out to the Christian
reader the argument and contents of the book, together with an illus-
trative example. . . .

It is now sixteen years since I became a monk, having taken the

132 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

vow without your knowledge and against your will. You were anxious
and fearful about my weakness, because I was a young blood of
twenty-two, that is, to use St. Augustine's words, it was still hot youth
with me, and you had learned from numerous examples that monkery
made many unblessed and so were determined to marry me honorably
and tie me down. This fear, this anxiety, this non-consent of yours
were for a time simply irreconcilable

And indeed, my vow was not worth a fig, since it was taken with-
out the consent of the parents God gave me. Moreover it was a
godless vow both because taken against your will and without my
whole heart. In short, it was simple doctrine of men, that is of the
spiritual estate of hypocrites, a doctrine not commanded by God. . . .

Dear father, will you still take me out of the cloister ? If so, do not
boast of it, for God has anticipated you and taken me out himself.
What difference does it make whether I retain or lay aside the cowl
and the tonsure. Do they make the monk? . . . My conscience is
free and redeemed ; therefore I am still a monk but not a monk, and
a new creature not of the Pope but of Christ, for the Pope also, has
creatures and is a creator of puppets and idols and masks and straw
men, of which I was formerly one, but now have escaped by the
Word. . . .

The Pope may strangle me and condemn me and bid me go to hell,
but he will not be able to rouse me after death to strangle me again.
To be banned and damned is according to my own heart and will.
May he never absolve me more ! I hope the great day is at hand
when the kingdom of abomination and horror will be broken and
thrust down. Would to God that I had been worthy to be burned by
the Pope ! . . .

The Lord bless you, dear father, with mother, your Margaret, and
all our family. Farewell in the Lord Christ.

The work itself is an elaborate inquiry into the nature of
monasticism. Some vows are allowed, but one must distinguish
between the good and the bad, for the more holy a thing is the
more likely it is to be perverted. " What is more holy than
worship which is the first commandment? But what is more
common than superstition, that is, false and perverted wor-
ship ? " No vow is to be taken except according to the Bible,
— the very opposite of monastic rules. If the Bible allows vir-
ginity it rather deters men from it than invites them to it. Sec-

THE WARTBURG 133

ondly, vows are the enemies of faith, for monastic life is a good
work, and hence outside of faith, without faith and sinful.
Thirdly, vows are hostile to Christian liberty. Fourthly, they
are repugnant to God's commands. If there have been saints
in the cloister, it has not been because of the cloister. Monks
forget that they are Christians in remembering that they are
Dominicans, Franciscans, or Benedictines. Vows are also hostile
to charity. Finally, they are inimical to reason.

This book, which the author himself judged to be among his
most important, had an enormous sale and great influence in
its own day. Needless to say, for us it has only an historical
interest, though, indeed, an eminent Catholic scholar thought
it necessary, only a few years ago, to refute it point by point.
But most of us will concur in the judgment of Erasmus when
it came out that "it is very garrulous."

Far greater than this treatise was the work next undertaken
by the Reformer, namely, the translation of the Bible, which
from this time on was the constant labor of his life. He began
with the New Testament, of which he speaks in the letter next
given : —

TO JOHN LANG AT ERFURT

Thb Wilderness, December 13, 1521.
I do not approve of that tumultuous exodus from the cloister, for
the monks should have separated peaceably and in charity. At the
next general chapter you must defend and cherish the Evangelic cause,
for I shall lie hidden until Easter. In. the mean time I shall continue
to write my Homilies and shall translate the New Testament into
German, a thing which my friends demand and at which I hear that
you also labor. Would that every town had its interpreter, and that
this book alone might be on the tongues and in the hands, the eyes,
the ears, and the hearts of all men. Ask for other news at Wittenberg.
I am well in body and well cared for, but am buffeted with sin and
temptation. Pray for me and farewell.

Martin Luther.

The work, though carefully done, was prosecuted with such
zeal that it was completed within three months. Of the methods,
results, and peculiarities of this translation more will be said in
a separate chapter. Suffice it here to note that Luther used the

134 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Greek text edited by Erasmus in 1516 and supplied with a new
Latin translation in parallel columns. It is possible that he also
had by him one or more of the older German translations, of
which there were at least fourteen, but the great originality
of his work would suggest that he used them but little.

CHAPTER XII

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION AND THE RETURN FROM
THE WARTBURG. 1521-1522

"While Luther was in retirement at the beautiful old castle
near Eisenach, the movement started by him was carried on
with accelerated velocity at Wittenberg. Carlstadt's attack on
sacerdotal celibacy was only the first step in a revolution. In
this movement two distinct factors combined, the one of con-
structive reform, the other of popular tumult; the best ele-
ments of the first were due to Luther, who, while absent, kept
up a constant correspondence with Wittenberg ; for the second
element other leaders were responsible, Carlstadt, Zwilling, and
the Zwickau prophets.

The constructive reform was embodied in two city ordinances,
the first of November, 1521, the second of January 24, 1522.
The earlier bit of legislation provided for " a common purse,"
that is, for the public care of the worthy poor, on new prin-
ciples, deduced from the Address to the Nobility and the larger
Sermon on Usury. It will be remembered how in his great
pamphlet the author proposes that begging be prohibited. This
was now done by the town of Wittenberg, while the deserving
poor, i. e., those who could not support themselves, were provided
for from funds voluntarily contributed to the parish church.
That not only the ideas but the form of this ordinance proceeded
from Luther has been proved from a first draft of the docu-
ment in his hand recently discovered.

The second decree passed by the town council two months
after the first was an extension of the other on more radical lines,
doubtless due to the active influence of Zwilling and Carlstadt.
It provided that to the common fund should be applied the
income from the property of the twenty-one resident brother-
hoods, and especially from endowed masses, now regarded as an
abomination. The expenses of the common treasury were also

136 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

greatly enlarged ; orphans were to be cared for, students at the
schools and university to be helped, poor girls to be supplied
with dowries, and workmen loaned capital at four per cent.
The laws against begging were reenacted with additional penal-
ties. A police charged with the surveillance of morals and espe-
cially with the suppression of houses of ill fame was instituted.
Finally, a new form of divine service was introduced, by which
all pictures and superfluous altars were to be torn down, com-
munion was to be administered in both kinds, and the govern-
ment bound itself to see that ministers preached only the pure
gospel. All the provisions of this comprehensive decree, except
the last on public worship, were suggested by Luther.

These reforms, for the most part salutary, were accompanied
by others, which, even when unobjectionable in themselves,
were carried through with mob violence. The riots began
about the first of October, when Gabriel Zwilling, an Augus-
tinian monk, began to preach against the mass and the canon-
ical hours. At his instance these services were stopped by the
monks on October 6 or 7 ; he then began a campaign against
the monastic life itself, not only leaving it free to his brothers
to quit the cloister, but forcing them to do so with insults and
threats.

Carlstadt now began to attack the mass and with such suc-
cess that the priests celebrating it in the parish church on
December 3 were stoned, and the day following an altar in
the Franciscan convent was destroyed by the students. The
arrest of the offenders was the occasion of a worse riot on
December 12, when the mob went to the town officers and de-
manded their release.

The agitation spread. The monks at Erfurt left the cloister
tumultuously. A plan was hatched to stop all masses, not only
at Wittenberg, but throughout the surrounding country, on
January 1, 1522. At Eilenberg a rectory was plundered.
On All Saints' Day (November 1) the citizens of Wittenberg
demonstrated in force against the Elector's relics in the Castle
Church.

Much disturbed by the progress of innovation, Luther made
a secret visit to his city early in December, lodging with Me-

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION 137

lanchthon and privately interviewing other friends, among them
Lucas Cranach, who painted his picture. He was rather reas-
sured than otherwise by this visit, deciding not to take too
tragically a disturbance in the monastery and a few student
riots. He accordingly contented himself with remaining a few
days, leaving behind him a Warning to all Christians to keep
from Uproar and Sedition. This manuscript he also sent to
Spalatin, who, however, prudently refused to have it printed
until three months later.

In this year [says Luther] by God's grace the holy light of Christ-
ian truth, formerly suppressed by the Pope and his followers, has been
rekindled, by which their manifold and noxious corruption and tyranny
has been laid bare and scotched. So that it looks as if tumults would
arise, and parsons, monks, bishops, and the whole spiritual estate
hunted out and smitten unless they apply themselves earnestly to their
improvement. For the common man, agitated and disgusted with the
harm done to his property, body and soul, means to do something, and
vows that he will never suffer such things more, and has reasons at his
tongue's end and threatens to smite with flail and cudgel.

The author adds that though the intimidation of the clergy
is a good thing, nevertheless tumult is the work of the devil,
and all Christians should keep aloof from it and labor only by
word of mouth. It may be doubted whether this pamphlet was
expressed in really prudent terms, and whether it would not be
more likely to excite discontent than to allay it. Nevertheless
things might have quieted down had it not been for the pow-
erful reenforcement received by the party of revolution on
December 27 in the advent of the Zwickau prophets.

Among the cloth weavers of this little Saxon town Thomas
Munzer, a fanatic, had formed a sect animated with the desire
to renovate both State and Church by the readiest and roughest
means. When the civil authorities, fearing the openly threat-
ened revolt, imprisoned some of the agitators, Munzer escaped
to Bohemia, and three of his followers, Nicholas Storch, Mark
Thomas Stiibner, and Thomae Drechsel, went to Wittenberg.
They proclaimed themselves prophets who talked familiarly
with God and foresaw the future, revelation coming to them
directly from the Spirit. Their mystic quietism was strangely

138 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

mingled with an anarchist programme for overturning the civil
government and extirpating the priests. The most harmless of
the dogmas of the new sect, and the one from which they were
to derive the name of Anabaptists, was opposition to infant
baptism and insistence on rebaptizing their proselytes.

At Wittenberg the prophets, or " ranters," as they were also
called, found a soil prepared for the seed of their doctrine. Ac-
cording to their suggestions learning was discouraged, dreams
were cultivated, and a systematic propaganda of anarchy organ-
ized.

The Wittenberg leaders either succumbed to the ascendancy
of the prophets or actively joined them. Carlstadt met them
more than halfway : he married, retired to a farm, affected to
dress like a laborer, and courted popularity by extolling the
revelation vouchsafed to babes and sucklings while disparaging
the wisdom of the wise. Other Lutherans, like Amsdorf, though
they heartily disapproved of the course things were taking,
were powerless to stem the tide.

The most responsible and gifted of all the professors left at
Wittenberg was Philip Melanchthon. Luther's admiration for
this pious and precociously learned young man was so great
that he felt perfectly safe in leaving the guidance of the new
cause in the latter's hands. " They will not need me, dear bro-
ther," he said on departing for Worms, " while you still Jive."
When he first heard of the new prophets he modestly opined that
Melanchthon would be better able to deal with them than he
would be. In this he was destined to disappointment. With
much delicacy and refinement, Melanchthon possessed the de-
fects of his qualities in a certain want of robustness. Both now,
and still more later, at the crises when he was deprived of the
other's strong influence, his life was made miserable and his
fame tarnished by the exigencies of a situation too large for
his powers. In the present instance he wavered, was inclined to
believe the arguments against infant baptism, was impressed by
the pretensions of the prophets, and hoped his friend S torch
might meet his friend Luther. The latter's directions to him
how to act, are interesting not only for their connection with the
prophets, but also as a revelation of the writer's inner life : —

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION 139

TO PHILIP MELANCHTHON AT WITTENBERG

(Wartbubg,) January 13, 1522.

Greeting. Had the letter of the Archbishop of Mayence come alone
it would have satisfied me, but now that Capito's letter is added it is
evident that there is some plot. I am greatly disappointed in Capito. I
wished to put a stop to that impious trade, but he pleads for it like an
attorney, and by teaching the archbishop to confess his private sins
thinks to impose on Luther beautifully. I shall restrain myself and not
treat the man as he deserves, yet I shall show him that I am alive.

Coming now to the " prophets " let me first say that I do not ap-
prove your irresolution, especially as you are more richly endowed
with the spirit and with learning than I am. In the first place, those
who bear witness of themselves are not to be believed, but spirits must
be proved. You act on Gamaliel's contrary advice. Hitherto I have
heard of nothing said or done by them which Satan could not emulate.
Do you, in my place, search out whether they approve their calling.
For God never sent any one who was not either called by men or
attested by miracles, not even his own son. . . . Do not receive them
if they assert that they come by mere revelation. . . .

Pray search their innermost spirit and see whether they have ex-
perienced those spiritual straightenings, that divine birth, death and
infernal torture. If you find their experiences have been smooth, bland,
devout (as they say) and ceremonious, do not approve them, though
they claim to have been snatched up to the third heaven. . . . Divine
Majesty does not speak directly; rather no man shall see him and live.
Nature bears no small stars and no insignificant words of God. . . .
Try not to see even Jesus in glory until you have seen him crucified.
(Here follows a long argument in favor of infant baptism.)

Keep my book against the Archbishop of Mayence to come out and
rebuke others when they go mad. Prepare me a lodging because my
translation of the Bible will require me to return to you, and pray the
Lord that I may do so in accordance with his will. I wish to keep hid-
den as long as may be ; in the mean time I shall proceed with what I
have begun. Farewell.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

But Melanchthon was not the man to cope with the situation.
Feeling h^s own weakness he besought the Elector to allow his
friend to return and quiet the disturbances, but the cautious

140 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

prince, fearing openly to acknowledge the outlaw, positively
refused to do so.

The tumults continued. On January 11 the Augustinians
solemnly burned all their pictures. On January 24 Carlstadt
forced the town council against their will to pass the ordinance
above mentioned. They disapproved in it especially of two
things : first, the illegal appropriation of the endowments of
masses, and secondly, the abolition of all images in the
churches, though the innovators described the making of im-
ages as worse than theft, murder, and adultery, because it was
forbidden in the first commandment, while the other sins were
relegated to the following ones.

The disorders attracted the attention of neighboring princes.
Duke George of Albertine Saxony made representations to his
cousin and also laid a complaint before the Imperial Executive
Council (Reichsregiment) at Nuremberg, on January 20. For a
moment it looked as if not only sedition but civil war threatened
Germany.

On February 1 there was another riot. The government at
last took action. Carlstadt was politely requested not to preach
and Z willing judged it best to leave town. The situation was
still extremely delicate, however, and, fearing another outbreak,
on February 20 the town council, without consulting the Elector,
sent an urgent request directly to Luther imploring him to re-
turn to his place at Wittenberg.

This letter was probably the earliest intimation the Reformer
had had of the continuation of rioting. His first idea was to send
another warning to the people, but the more he thought about
it the more certain he became that his presence was necessary.
He intimated his intention of returning in a letter to his
sovereign, ironically referring to the doings at Wittenberg as
a cross which would be a valuable addition to Frederic's famous
collection of relics. The mild and pious prince answered at once
in a letter to John Oswald, one of his officers at Eisenach,
bidding him have a personal interview with the Reformer and
communicate the contents of the missive. This relates the
course of events at Wittenberg, but also emphasizes the com-
plaints already made against them by Duke George and the

*>s

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION 141

danger of a new process against Luther, whom he advises to have
patience and wait at least until after the next diet, to be called
about the middle of Lent. The cross Frederic says he is willing
to bear.

This letter arrived on February 28 and its contents were
communicated to the refugee just as he had made all preparations
to depart. Unhindered by it, he did so the next day, making
the dangerous journey alone on horseback. Reaching Jena on
March 3, he chanced to meet two Swiss students, John Kessler
and Spengler, on their way to Wittenberg to study. One of
them has left us, in an account of the evening at the Great Bear
inn, a vivid picture of the Reformer and a little drama as well.
The scene is the public room of the hostel, heated with the
large German tile stove and lighted by candles. At a table sits
a stalwart man, no longer thin and not yet stout ; his beard, red
cap, jerkin and hose, and a long sword, proclaim him a knight.
Before him is a glass of beer ; one hand rests on the hilt of his
weapon, in the other he holds an open book. Enter two youths,
who on account of their muddy boots sit down near the door.

Luther — Good evening, friends. Draw nearer and have a drink to
warm you up. I see you are Swiss ; from what part do you come and
whither are you going ?

Kessler — We come from St. Gall, sir, and we are going to Witten-
berg.

Luther — To Wittenberg ? Well, you will find good compatriots of
yours there, the brothers Jerome and Augustine Schurf.

Kessler — We have letters to them. Can you tell us, sir, whether
Luther is now at Wittenberg, or where he may be ?

Luther — I have authentic information that he is not at Witten-
berg, but that he will soon return. But Philip Melanchthon is there to
teach Greek, and Aurogallus to teach you Hebrew, both of which
languages you should study if you wish to understand the Bible.

Kessler — Thank God that Luther will soon be back ; if God
grant us life we will not rest until we see and hear that man. For it
is on account of him that we are going there. We have heard that he
wishes to overturn the priesthood and the mass, and as our parents
have brought us up to be priests, we want to hear what he can tell
us and on what authority he acts.

Luther — Where have you studied formerly ?

142 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Kessler — At Basel.

Luther — How goes it at Basel ? Is Erasmus there and what is he
Joing ?

Kessler — Erasmus is there, sir, but what he does no man knows,
tor he keeps it a secret. (Aside to his companion as Luther takes a
drink) I never knew a knight before who used so much Latin, nor one
who understood Greek and Hebrew as this one seems to.

Luther — Friends, what do they think of Luther in Switzerland ?

Kessler — There are various opinions there, sir, as everywhere.
Some cannot extol him enough, and thank God for having revealed
truth and discovered error by him ; others, especially the clergy, con-
demn him as an intolerable heretic.

Luther — One might expect as much from the preachers.

Spengler — (Raising book which he sees is a Hebrew Psalter) I
would give a finger to understand this tongue.

Luther — You must work hard to learn it. I also am learning it,
and practise some every day.

(It is getting dark. Host bustles up, lights more candles, stops before
table.)

Host — I overheard you, gentlemen, talking of Luther. Pity you were
not all here two days ago ; he was here then at this table, sitting right
there (points).

Spengler — If this cursed weather had not hindered us we should
have been here then and should have seen him. Is it not a pity ?

Kessler — At least we ought to be thankful that we are in the same
house that he was and at the very table where he sat. (Host laughs,
goes toward door ; when out of sight of Luther turns and beckons
Kessler, who rises anxiously thinking that he has done something amiss
and goes to host.)

Host (aside to Kessler) — Now that I see that you really want
to hear and see Luther, I may tell you that the man at your table
is he.

Kessler — You're just gulling me because you think I want to see
Luther.

Host — No, it is positively he, but don't let on that you know him.
(Kessler returns to table, where Luther has begun to read again.)

Kessler (whispering to his companion) — The host tells me this man
is Luther.

Spengler — What on earth ? Perhaps he said " Hutten " ; the two
names sound alike, and he certainly looks more like a knight than a
monk.

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION 143

(Enter two merchants, who take off their cloaks. One of them lays
a book on the table.)

Luther — May I ask, friend, what you are reading ?

Merchant — Doctor Luther's sermons, just out ; have you not seen
them?

Luther — I shall soon, at any rate.

Host — Sit down, gentlemen, sit down ; it is supper-time now.

Luther — Come here, gentlemen ; I will stand treat. (The merchants
sit down and supper is served.) These are bad times, gentlemen. I
heard only recently of the princes and lords assembling at Nuremberg
to settle the religious question and remedy the grievances of the
German nation. What do they do ? Nothing but waste their time in
tournaments and all kinds of wicked diversions. They ought to pray
earnestly to God. Fine princes they are ! Let us hope that our children
and posterity will be less poisoned by papal errors and more given to
the truth than their parents, in whom error is so firmly implanted that
it is hard to root out.

First Merchant — I am a plain, blunt man, look you, who understand
little of this business, but I say to myself, as far as I can see, Luther
must be either an angel from heaven or a devil from hell. I would give
ten gulden to have the chance to confess to him ; I believe he could
give me good counsel for my conscience. (The merchants get up and
go out to feed their horses.)

Host (to students) — You owe me nothing ; Luther has paid it all.

Kessler — Thank you, sir, shall I say Hutten ?

Luther — No, I am not he; (to host) I am made a noble to-night,
for these Switzers take me for Ulrich von Hutten.

Host — You are not Hutten, but Martin Luther.

Luther (laughing) — They think I am Hutten ; you that I am
Luther; soon I'll be Prester John. (Raising his glass) Friends, I drink
your health (putting down his glass), but wait a moment; host, bring
us a measure of wine ; the beer is not so good for me, as I am more
accustomed to wine. (They drink.)

Luther (rising to say good-night and offering them his hand) —
When you get to Wittenberg, remember me to Jerome Schurf.

Kessler — Whom shall we remember, sir ?

Luther — Say only that he that will soon come sends his greetings.
(Exit.)

The next morning Luther departed early. At Borna, where
he arrived on March 5, he wrote his sovereign to apologize for

144 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

his reference to the latter's hobby of relic-collecting, and to
point out why he must go to Wittenberg even if Frederic could
no longer protect him there : —

TO FREDERIC, ELECTOR OF SAXONY, AT LOCHAU

Borna, March 5, 1522.

Favor and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ, and my humble service.

Most serene, highborn Prince, most gracious Lord ! Your Grace's
kind letter reached me Friday evening as I was about to depart the
next day. I need not say that I know your Grace meant the best
for me, for I am certain of it as far as a man can be of anything.
Indeed my conviction of it is almost superhuman, but that makes no
difference.

I take the liberty of supposing from your Grace's tone that my let-
ter hurt you a little, but your Grace is wise enough to understand how
I write. I have confidence that your Grace knows my heart better than
to suppose I would insult your Grace's famous wisdom by unseemly
words. I assure you with all my heart that I have always had a per-
fect and unaffected love for your Grace above all other princes and
rulers. What I wrote was from anxiety to reassure your Grace, not
for my own sake (of that I had no thought), but for the sake of the
untoward movement at Wittenberg carried on by our friends to the
detriment of the Evangelic cause. I feared that your Grace would
suffer great inconvenience from it. The calamity also bore hard on
me, so that, had I not been certain we had the pure gospel, I should
have despaired. To my sorrow the movement has made a mockery of
all the good that has been done and has brought it to naught. I would
willingly buy the good cause with my life could I do so. Things are
now done for which we can answer neither to God nor to man. They
hang around my neck and offend the gospel and sadden my heart.
My letter, most gracious Lord, was for those men, and not for my-
self, that your Grace might see the devil in the drama now enacting
at Wittenberg. Although the admonition was unnecessary to your
Grace, yet it was needful for me to write. As for myself, most gra-
cious Lord, I answer thus : Your Grace knows (or, if you do not, I
now inform you of the fact) that I have received my gospel not from
men but from Heaven only, by our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I
might well be able to boast and call myself a minister and evangel-
ist, as I shall do in future. I offered to be tried and judged, not

THE WITTENBERG REVOLUTION 145

because I had doubts myself, but to convince others and from sheer
humility. But now I see that my too great humility abases the gospel,
and that if I yield a span the devil will take all. So I am consci-
entiously compelled to resist. I have obeyed your Grace this year [by
staying at Wartburg] to please you. The devil knows I did not hide
from cowardice, for he saw my heart when I entered Worms. Had
I then believed that there were as many devils as tiles on the roof, I
would have leaped into their midst with joy. Now Duke George is still
far from being the equal of one devil. Since the Father of infinite
mercy has by the gospel made us happy lords of all devils and of
death, and has given us rich confidence to call him dearest Father,
your Grace can see for yourself that it would be a deep insult to such
a Father not to trust him, and that we are lords even of Duke George's
wrath. I am fully persuaded that had I been called to Leipsic instead
of Wittenberg, I should have gone there, even if (your Grace will ex-
cuse my foolish words) it had rained Duke Georges nine days and
every duke nine times as furious as this one. He esteems my Lord
Christ a man of straw, but my Lord and I can suffer that for a while.
I will not conceal from your Grace that I have more than once wept
and prayed for Duke George that God might enlighten him. I will
pray and weep once more and then cease for ever. Will your Grace
please pray, and have prayers said by others, that we may turn from him
the judgment that (God knows) is always in wait for him. I could slay
him with a single word.

I have written this to your Grace to inform you that I am going to
Wittenberg under a far higher protection than that of the Elector. I
do not intend to ask your Grace's protection. Indeed I think I shall
protect you rather than you me. If I thought your Grace could and
would defend me by force, I would not come. The sword ought not
and cannot decide a matter of this kind. God alone must rule it with-
out human care and cooperation. He who believes the most can protect
the most, and as I see your Grace is yet weak in faith, I can by no
means regard you as the man to protect and save me.

As your Grace desires to know what to do in this matter, and thinks
you have done too little, I humbly answer that you have done too
much and should do nothing. God will not and cannot suffer your
interference nor mine. He wishes it left to himself ; I say no more,
your Grace can decide. If your Grace believes, you will be safe and
have peace ; if you do not believe, / do, and must leave your Grace's
unbelief to its own torturing anxiety such as all unbelievers have to
suffer. As I do not follow your advice and remain hidden, your Grace

146 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

is excused before God if I am captured or put to death. Before men
your Grace should act as a prince of the Empire and be obedient to
your sovereign, and let his Imperial Majesty rule in your cities over
both life and property, as is his right by the Imperial Constitution,
and you should not offer any resistance in case he captures and puts
me to death. No one should oppose authority save he who ordained it,
otherwise it is rebellion and displeasing to God. But I hope they will
have the good sense to recognize your Grace's lofty position and so not
become my executioners themselves. If your Grace leaves them an
open door and free passes, when they come you will have done enough
for obedience. They can ask nothing more of your Grace than to in-
quire if Luther be with you, which will not put your Grace in peril
or trouble. Christ has not taught me to be a Christian to injure others.
If they are so unreasonable as to ask your Grace to lay hands upon me,
I shall then tell your Grace what to do, always keeping your Grace
safe from injury and peril in body, soul, or estate, as far as in me is —
your Grace may then act as I advise or not as you please. . , .
Your Grace's humble subject,

Martin Luther.

Frederic answered this letter on March 7 with one to the
Wittenberg jurist Schurf, bidding him request Luther to draw
up a statement that he had only returned to quiet the tumults.
The Reformer did as requested on March 9 ; the Elector was
not quite satisfied and a new memorial was accordingly drawn
up by Luther on March 12, which the Prince might submit to
the Diet soon to assemble at Nuremberg. The reasons here
given, and above all the immediate subsidence of tumult, com-
pletely satisfied that august body and prevented any measures
being taken against the banned heretic or his protector.

CHAPTER XIII

CARLSTADT AND MUNZER. 1522-1525

Every revolution has its extremists against whose unwise
fanaticism the true reformer has to guard as carefully as he
resists the abuses of hopeless reactionaries. Some revolutions
fall under the sway of the radical party — Jacobins and Com-
munists— and thus plunge into excesses which every true friend
of progress must regret. The Eef ormation was no exception to
the general rule ; it had its extreme left, — Anabaptists and
ranters as they were then called, — and had it not been for the
master brain in control, any one of several revolutionary parties
claiming alliance with the Reformation might have obtained the
ascendancy and swept it along to the ruin which overtook each
in turn. Luther's insight, courage, and genius shone brighter in
steering his ship clear of these rocks and shoals than they had
when he first cut the ropes and set sail.

His task now was to restore order at Wittenberg. Arriv-
ing late on the afternoon of Thursday, March 6, he spent
two days looking about and getting his bearings. The im-
pression he made is faithfully recorded in a contemporary
letter from Albert Burer to Beatus Rhenanus, Wittenberg,
March 29 : —

Martin Luther returned to restore order clad as a knight and in
the company of knights. . . . He is a man in whose face one may
read benevolence, charity, and cheerfulness ; his voice is mild and mel-
low ; his delivery very graceful. Whoever has heard him once will
desire to hear him again.

Luther lost no time in starting a vigorous campaign against
the agitation. In eight sermons, on eight successive days, from
March 9 to 16, risking his popularity as freely as he had his
life, he exhorted the people to good sense, moderation, and
above all to charity. In the first address, on the text, " All

148 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

things are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient," he
shows how much better it is to tolerate some usages which we
regard as superfluous and unnecessary, for the sake of our
brothers who are not so far advanced. Eeform must begin with
milk for babes, the pure doctrine of charity and faith, after
which may come the strong meat of drastic law. True Christ-
ian liberty is not evinced by boasting how free we are from all
law, but by showing how ready we are to serve our neighbors
in love. On the second day he enunciated one of his fundamental
principles with distinctness : —

Compel or force any one with power I will not, for faith must be
gentle and unforced. Take an example by me. I opposed indulgences
and all the papists, but not with force ; I only wrote, preached, and
used God's Word, and nothing else. That Word, while I slept and
drank beer with Melanchthon and Amsdorf, has broken the papacy
more than any king or emperor ever broke it. Had I wished it, I
might have brought Germany to civil war. Yes, at Worms I might
have started a game which would not have been safe for the Emperor,
but it would have been a fool's game. So I did nothing, but Only let
the Word act.

Having laid down his general principles, that mob violence
is not the way to reform the Church, that sedition, even when
provoked, is always wrong, and that the people in presuming
to regulate spiritual matters usurp an office which does not be-
long to them, the preacher goes on in the following sermons to
take up one by one the matters which have so much exercised
the community — images, the monastic life, taking the sacra-
ment in both kinds — and applies these principles to them.
The eight sermons must be given a high place in the oratory
not only of the pulpit but of the forum. They are filled with
the spirit of the statesman as well as of the priest. They were
completely successful. The lowering clouds before which his
colleagues had stood gaping or which they had helped to raise
vanished almost in a moment. Luther mentioned no names, but
the leaders of the opposition were thoroughly discredited and
left without a follower. Carlstadt sulked at home ; the prophets
beat a hasty retreat.

On the day after his last sermon the Keformer wrote a letter

CARLSTADT AND MUNZER 149

to the parish priest at Zwickau, one of his most devoted fol-
lowers, expounding his method of action clearly and concisely.
The epistle is conceived in the spirit of Paul's advice to the
Corinthians (1 Corinthians, viii) :

TO NICHOLAS HAUSMANN AT ZWICKAU

Wittenberg, March 17, 1522.

Greeting. Dear Nicholas, although I am variously occupied by our
great disturbances, I cannot omit writing to you. Your Zwickau
prophets were about to bring forth monsters, which if born would have
done no little damage. Their spirit is fair-seeming and very wily, but
the Lord be with you. Amen.

Satan has attempted much evil here in my fold, and in such a man-
ner that it is hard to oppose him without scandal. Be on your guard
against all innovations made by public decree or popular agitation.
What our friends attempt by force and violence must be resisted by
word only, overcome by word and destroyed by word. It is Satan
who urges us to extreme measures.

I condemn masses held as sacrifices and good works, but I would not
lay hands on those who are unwilling to give them up or on those who
are doubtful about them, nor would I prevent them by force. I con-
demn by word only ; whoso believes, let him believe and follow, whoso
does not believe, let him not believe and depart. No one is to be com-
pelled to the faith or to the things that are of faith, but to be drawn by
word that he may believe and come of his own accord. I condemn
images, but only by word, saying not that they should be burned, but
that faith should not be placed in them, as hitherto has been done and
is yet done. They will fall of themselves when the instructed people
learn that they are nothing before God. In like manner I condemn
the Pope's laws about confession, communion, prayer and fasting, but
by word, that I may free consciences from them. While their con-
sciences are freed, they may use such things for the sake of the weaker
brethren who are entangled in them, and then may cease to use them
as they wax strong, so that charity may be the rule in external usages
and laws.

Nothing vexes me more than this multitude, which abandons Scrip-
ture, faith, and charity, and boasts that it is Christian only because in
the presence of weaker brethren it is able to eat flesh on Fridays,
commune in both kinds, and stop fasting and prayer. . . . But all
things are to be proved by Scripture and hearts are to be helped little

150 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

by little like Jacob's sheep, that they may first receive the word of
their own accord and afterwards grow stronger. . . .

Yours,

Martin Luther.

Early in April Luther consented to hear the prophets in their
own defence, of which he later gave the following report : —

In 1522 * Mark Storch 2 came to me with sweet, seductive words to
lay his doctrine before me. As he presumed to teach things not in
Scripture I said to him : " I will not agree with that part of your doc-
trine unsupported by Scripture unless you work miracles to prove it."
. . . He said : " You shall see miracles in seven years." (These words
were from Satan who soon after instigated the Peasants' Revolt.) He
presumptuously continued : " God will not take away my power. I can
tell whether a man will be saved or not." — But Satan cannot remain
hidden: his speech bewrayeth him. Storch had wonderful phrases, " illu-
mination, quietism," and the like.8 I asked him what he meant by
these words, but he said he would not preach to inept disciples. I asked
him how he knew the inept from the apt. He replied : " I can tell what
sort of a talent a man has." I asked : " My dear Mark, what sort of a
talent have I ? " He answered : " You are in the first degree of mobil-
ity, but you will soon be in the first degree of immobility," — in which
I am.

After pacifying Wittenberg, Luther visited Weimar, Erfurt,
and other neighboring places, preaching with great success
against fanaticism and sedition.

But the battle was not to be so easily won. The ranters,
driven from the neighborhood of Wittenberg, fled to other
places, where they propagated the same doctrines. Thomas
Miinzer, the great original agitator, after his expulsion from

1 Text 1521 (Bindseil, ii, 21). This is a mistake. The prophets did not arrive
in Wittenberg: until December 27, 1521. Cf. Enders, iii, 331.

2 The names of the prophets are confused : Nicholas Storch and Mark Thomae
Stiibner.

8 Langweiligkeit, translated quietism, refers to the doctrine of the mystics that
the way to know God was to wait for him in absolute vacancy of thought. These
phrases of the mystics recall Sir Thomas Browne's description of the mystic
doctrine in Urn-Burial : " Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction,
transformation, the kisse of the Spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the
divine shadow."

CARLSTADT AND MUNZER 151

Zwickau and visit to Bohemia, settled in the little Saxon town
of Allstedt, where he soon won followers. Images were broken
down, infant baptism abolished, dreams systematically culti-
vated as a means of communication with God, laws reducing
the interest and providing for the periodical repudiation of the
principal of debt were passed and the right to hold private pro-
perty was questioned. Worse yet, a campaign of fire and sword
against the " godless," including papists and Lutherans alike,
was preached with all the violence of fanaticism. The peasants
streamed in from the surrounding country, armed and on the
verge of rebellion. Seeing that an appeal to reason could no
longer be made, Luther wrote the following letter to the Elector
and his brother, who were hesitating whether to attack the wolf
of rebellion masquerading under the sheeps' clothing of relig-
ious reform : —

TO THE ELECTOR FREDERIC AND DUKE JOHN OF SAXONY '

(Wittenberg, July,) 1524.
Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Saviour. God's holy Word,
when it arises, always has the good fortune to excite Satan with all
his might against itself. At first the devil rages with his fist and wicked
power, then, if that does no good, he attacks with false tongues and ex-
travagant spirits and doctrines, so that what he could not crush with
power he may suffocate with venomous lies. . . . Now Satan knows
that the rage of Pope and Emperor will accomplish nothing against
us ; yea, he feels that, as is the way with God's Word, the more
it is pressed down the more it spreads and grows, and therefore he
now attacks it with false spirits and sects. We must therefore con-
sider and not err, for it must be so, as Paul says to the Corinthians :
"There must also be heresies among you that they which are ap-
proved may be made manifest." And so, as Satan driven out has now
wandered two or three years through dry places, seeking rest and find-
ing none, he has at last settled in your Graces' electorate, and made
himself a nest at Allstedt, and thinks under our peace, protection,
and guardianship to fight against us. For Duke George's principal-
ity, although it is our next neighbor, is, as they themselves boast, too
favorable and gentle for such a bold and dauntless spirit, so that
the sectaries cannot there show their courage and confidence, where-
fore the bad spirit cries out and complains terribly that he must suffer

152 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

much, although no one has yet attacked him with sword or tongue
or pen, and they only dream that they are bearing a cross. So frivol-
ously and causelessly must Satan lie, though he can thereby deceive
no one.

Now it is an especial joy that our followers did not begin this
heresy, as the sectaries themselves boast that they did not learn it from
us, but directly from Heaven and that they hear God speak to them
immediately as to the angels. It is a simple fact that at Wittenberg
only faith, love, and the cross of Christ are taught. God's voice, they
say, you must hear yourself, and suffer and feel God's work in you to
know your own weight ; aye, they make nothing of the Scripture, which
they call " Bible-bubble-Babel." To judge by what they say their cross
and passion is greater than Christ's and more to be prized. . . .

The sole reason for my inditing this letter to your Graces is that I
have gathered from the writings of these people, that this same spirit
will not be satisfied to make 'converts by word only, but intends to be-
take himself to arms and set himself with power against the govern-
ment, and forthwith raise a riot. Here Satan lets the cat out of the
bag, that is, makes public too much. What will this spirit do, when he
has won the support of the mob ? Truly here at Wittenberg I have
heard from the same spirit that his business must be carried through
with the sword. I then marked that their plans would come out,
namely, to overturn the civil government and themselves become lords
of the world. But Christ says his kingdom is not of this world, and
teaches the apostles not to be as the rulers of the earth. So although I
am aware that your Graces will understand how to act in this matter
better than I can advise you, nevertheless it is my humble duty to do
my part, and humbly to pray and warn your Graces to fulfil your duty
as civil governors by preventing mischief and by forestalling rebellion.
Your Graces may rest assured in your consciences that your power
and rule was given and commended to you by God, that you might
preserve the peace and punish those who break it, as St. Paul teaches
in Romans. Therefore your Graces should neither sleep nor be idle,
for God will demand an answer and reckoning from you for a care-
less or spiritless use of the sword. Moreover your Graces could not
excuse yourselves before the people and the world if you allowed re-
bellion and crimes of violence to make headway.

If they give out, as they are wont to do with their swelling words,
that the spirit drives them on to attempt force, then I answer thus :
It is a bad spirit which shows no other fruit than burning churches,
cloisters, and images, for the worst rascals on earth can do as much.

CARLSTADT AND MUNZER 153

• . . Secondly . . . that it is a bad spirit which dares not give an an-
swer. . . . for I, poor, miserable man, did not so act in my doctrine.
... I went to Leipsic to debate before a hostile audience. At Augs-
burg I appeared without safe-conduct before my worst enemy. I went
to Worms to answer to the Emperor and Diet, although I well knew
that they had broken my safe-conduct, and planned all manner of
evil against me. . . .

If they will do more than propagate their doctrines by word, if they
attempt force, your Graces should say : We gladly allow any one to
teach by word, that the right doctrine may be preserved ; but draw
not the sword, which is ours ; if you do, you must leave the country. . . .

Now I will close for this time, having humbly prayed your Graces
to act vigorously against their storming and ranting, that God's king-
dom may be advanced by word only, as becomes Christians, and that
all cause of sedition be taken from the multitude (Herr Omnes) which
is more than enough inclined to it already. For they are not Christ-
ians who would go beyond the word and appeal to force, even if
they boast that they are full of holy spirits. God's mercy eternally
strengthen and preserve your Graces. Amen.

Yours Graces' obedient,

Dr. Martin Luther.

This letter " against the Satan of Allstedt," as Luther called
him, was published, and Miinzer summoned by the Elector to
a conference with its author at Weimar. The fanatic feared
to obey, and fled to the city of Muhlhausen, continuing, always
and everywhere, his revolutionary agitation, and breathing out
slaughter and reviling against " that archheathen, archrascal,
Wittenberg pope, snake, and basilisk."

Carlstadt, too, continued his iconoclastic career. Unable to
bear the peaceful atmosphere of Wittenberg, he had himself
elected to the church at Orlamiinde. Here he advanced ideas
similar to those of Miinzer, except that he refused to appeal to
arms, thereby winning the opinion of that ranter that he was a
coward and a reprobate. His reforms included the introduction
of polygamy and the advocacy of a new doctrine of the sacra-
ment. Luther, who was inclined to condone the former, as not
forbidden by the Bible, vehemently objected to the latter as
heretical. Discussion of this doctrine is reserved for a later
chapter.

154 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Notwithstanding Carlstadt's errors, the Reformer was not
ready to break with him as soon as he had with Miinzer. On
August 22, 1524, the two had a conference at Jena, and parted
with a friendly agreement to differ. "The more ably you
attack me," said Luther, " the better I shall like it," and gave
his old colleague a gold gulden as a sign that he was free to
advance what opinions he liked so long as they were supported
by argument only and not by violence. In accordance with this
invitation, the pastor of Orlamunde began a work on the sac-
rament, but soon the order came to him, September 18, to leave
Saxony. He went to Basel, and early in November published
several pamphlets against Luther, defending his doctrine of
the sacrament, denying the expediency of infant baptism,
asserting that he had direct communications from God, and
charging his opponent with having been responsible for his
exile. These tracts excited a good deal of attention. Zwingli,
a far abler head than Carlstadt, adopted his doctrine of the
eucharist, and Capito, a reformer of Strassburg, wrote a pam-
phlet trying to harmonize the two opponents, which was the
cause of Luther's letter to the Christians of that city, warning
them against false doctrine. His animus against his old col-
league was increased both by his pamphlets and by an experi-
ence at Orlamunde described in this epistle : —

TO THE CHRISTIANS OF STRASSBURG

(Wittenberg, December 14, 1524.)
. . . Certain of your clergy have written about the outcry made by
Dr. Carlstadt with his ranting about images and the sacrament and
baptism, and that he reviles me with having driven him from Saxony.
Now, dear friends, I am not your preacher and no one is bound to
believe me . . . but I hope you have seen in* my writings how simply
and certainly I treat the gospel, the grace of Christ, the law, faith,
love, the cross, doctrines of men, the Pope, and monastic vows. . . .
Of these main articles of faith Carlstadt has not rightly set forth one,
nor can he. Now that I look into his writings I am simply shocked to
find out, what I did not before suspect, that the man is still in such
deep darkness. It looks to me as if he thought the whole of Christ-
ianity lay in breaking images and hindering the sacrament. ... I
might stand his raging iconoclasm, for I have been more iconoclastic

CARLSTADT AND MUNZER 155

by my writing than he by his raging, but what is not to be borne is his
imputation that all who do not do as he bids are not Christians. . . .

I can bear the charge of Carlstadt that I drove him out of the land.
Were it true I could answer to God for it. . . .

He himself persuaded me at Jena not to confound his spirit with
the seditious, murderous spirit of Allstedt. But when, at the Elector's
behest, I went to his " Christians " at Orlamunde, I saw what seed he
had sown and was glad to escape safe, being driven away with stones
and mud, the inhabitants giving me their blessing with the words :
" Go hence in the name of a thousand devils, lest you have your neck
broken before you leave." . . .

I beg your preachers, dear brethren, to leave Luther and Carlstadt
and point only to Christ, and not as Carlstadt does only to the work
of Christ, and the example of Christ, which was the least part of his
mission, in which he was like other saints, but to Christ as the gift of
God, or, as Paul says, the strength of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanc-
tification, and redemption, given to us, which these " prophets " have
not tasted nor understood. They juggle with "their living voice from
Heaven," and their " ecstasy, illumination, mortification," and such
bombastic words which they do not understand themselves, though by
them they make consciences heavy while men wonder at their great
art and forget Christ. ...

Shortly after writing this letter Luther published a compre-
hensive work Against the Heavenly Prophets of Images and
the Sacrament, the first part of which appeared late in Decem-
ber, the second half early in January, 1525. In the first part
he says : —

We should be very careful to distinguish and widely to separate
fundamentals concerning the conscience and things indifferent con-
cerning outward works. . . . These ambitious prophets do nothing
but smash images, break into churches, lord it over the sacrament,
and seek new ways of mortification, that is, of self-inflicted death
of the flesh. They have not yet learned nor preached the doctrine of
faith and how to rule the conscience, which is the principal and most
necessary Christian doctrine. Suppose that they succeeded in leaving
no more images and no churches standing, and suppose that they per-
suaded every one in all the world not to believe that Christ's flesh
and blood were in the sacrament, and suppose all dressed in gray,
peasants' clothes, what would they gain by all this ? . . . Would

156 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

they be Christians thereby ? Where would be faith and love ? —
Pictures are defended as a help to the faith of the ignorant.

Luther denies Carlstadt's charge that he has been at the
bottom of the latter's exile. He brings against him the counter-
charges, first, of neglecting the duties of a professor for which
he was paid, and secondly, of exciting sedition, for either of
which he might justly have been sent away. " These prophets
teach that the reform of Christendom should start with a
slaughter of the godless, that they themselves may be lords of
the earth. I myself have heard this from them, and Dr. Carl-
stadt knows that they are ranting and murderous spirits. . . .
For those who preach murder can have no other origin than
the devil himself, even if they have all wisdom and know the
Bible, for the devil also knows the Bible well. Is it not a
plague that people should be moved by such spirits before the
princes know aught of it, and that the populace is thereby
made presumptuous and turbulent?"

The second part is on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper,
Carlstadt's arguments being answered one by one.

The work had great notoriety but little success. The Strass-
burgers were rather alienated by it and inclined to side with
the exile. Public attention was soon drawn from the quarrel
of Luther and the prophets to afar larger movement in which
it was swallowed up, the Peasants' Eevolt.

Before describing that important event, let us glance at the
latter end of Carlstadt. The death of Miinzer and other agitat-
ors, in the defeat of the peasants, made him fear for his life.
Not knowing where to turn, he went back to Wittenberg and
besought a refuge with the Reformer. From near the first of
July till late in September he was sheltered by his old col-
league and opponent, who wrote a letter to the Elector, on Sep-
tember 12, asking him to allow Carlstadt to live peaceably at
Kemberg. This petition was refused ; the fanatic had to leave,
and wandered long from place to place, until at last he became
professor in the University of Basel. He had learned his lesson
and never more was a political agitator.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT. 1525

Peasant risings were not uncommon in Europe for more
than a millennium. Such an insurrection had taken place in
Gaul in Roman times. Such were the Jacquerie in France
in 1358 and the gigantic strike of English laborers in 1381.
The struggle for Swiss freedom also may be viewed as a social
as well as a national conflict. The fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries saw many local revolts. To the old standing grievances
of the lords' tyranny, the heavy taxes and tithes, the game
laws, the corvee and serfdom, common causes of all these ris-
ings alike, new motives were added to make this last the most
terrible, among them the prevalent intellectual unrest and the
powerful leaven of the new religious teaching.

Luther, indeed, could honestly say that he had consistently
preached the duty of obedience and the wickedness of sedition,
nevertheless his democratic message of the brotherhood of man
and the excellence of the humblest Christian worked in many
ways undreamed of by himself. Moreover, he had mightily
championed the cause of the oppressed commoner against his
masters. " The people neither can nor will endure your tyranny
any longer," said he to the nobles ; " God will not endure it ;
the world is not what it once was when you drove and hunted
men like wild beasts." Other preachers, among whom Carl-
stadt and Miinzer were two conspicuous examples, took up the
word and carried it to the wildest conclusions of communism
and anarchy.

Beginning in the autumn of 1524, in the highlands between
the sources of the Rhine and the Danube, the rebellion swept
north through Frariconia and Swabia. The demands of the
insurgents were embodied in the Twelve Articles, drawn up
not later than February, 1525, by a Swabian, Sebastian Lotzer,
and tacitly adopted as the official programme by most of the

158 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

bands of rustics. The fundamental principle of this document
is the entire assimilation of civil and divine law ; all claims are
supported by an appeal to the gospel, under which rule the
insurgents declare their intention to live. The articles propose
the free election by each parish of its pastor, the reduction of
taxes and tithes, the abolition of serfdom, freedom to hunt, fish,
and cut wood in the forests, less forced labor, reopening of
commons to the public, substitution of the old (German) for
the new (Roman) law, and abolition of the heriot.

Continuing to spread, the insurrection reached Thuringia
and Saxony about April, 1525. In this region all eyes were
turned to Luther, the man of the people. In one pamphlet,
dated March 7, the peasants requested him, together with
Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and the Elector Frederic to act as
arbitrators between them and the lords. As yet Luther had
not heard of the atrocities committed by some of the rebels.
But there was danger in the air. At the invitation of his old
lord, Count Albert of Mansfeld, he journeyed to Eisleben to
investigate the situation. Here, while the guest of Chancellor
Diirr, on April 19 and 20, he composed An Exhortation to
Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants. By
this warning, which he states is written in answer to the request
of the insurgents for instruction, he hoped to bring both sides
to reason and prevent the effusion of blood. He addresses each
party by turns, the lords and the commoners. To the former
he says : —

" We need thank no one on earth for this foolish rebellion but you,
my lords, and especially you blind bishops, parsons and monks, for you,
even yet hardened, cease not to rage against the holy gospel, although
you know that our cause is right and you cannot controvert it. Besides
this, in civil government you do nothing but oppress and tax to main-
tain your pomp and pride, until the poor common man neither can
nor will bear it any longer. The sword is at your throat, and yet you
still think you sit so firm in the saddle that no one can hoist you out.
You will find out that by such hardened presumption you will break
your necks. ... If these peasants don't do it, others will ; God will
appoint others, for he intends to smite you and will smite you."

Some say the rebellion has been caused by Luther's doctrine, but he

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 159

avers that he has always taught obedience to the powers that be.
" But the prophets of murder are hostile to you as to me, and they
have gone among the people these three years and no one has with-
stood them but I."

Some of the peasants' articles are right, as the demand to choose
their own pastors and the repudiation of the heriot.

To the peasantry he says : —

"It is my friendly and fraternal prayer, dearest brothers, to be
very careful what you do. Believe not all spirits and preachers."
Those who take the sword shall perish by the sword and every soul
should be subject to the powers that be, in fear and honor. " If the
government is bad and intolerable, that is no excuse for riot and insur-
rection, for to punish evil belongs not to every one, but to the civil
authority which bears the sword." Suffering tyranny is a cross given
by God. Luther will pray for them.

Coming to a consideration of the Twelve Articles he says
that even if they were all just, the peasants would have no right
to put them through by force. The first article, for the right to
elect pastors, is right. The second demand, that the tithes be
divided between the priest and the poor, is simple robbery, for
the tithes belong to the government. The third, for the aboli-
tion of serfdom on the ground that Christ has freed all, makes
Christian freedom a carnal thing and is therefore unjustified.
The other eight articles (that on the heriot having been already
approved) are referred to the lawyers.

The pamphlet closes with a solemn charge to each side to
strive not for its own gain, but for the right, and a warning
to keep the peace.

• Excellent as were Luther's intentions, his exhortation was
imprudently expressed. In any case, however, interference came
too late. Already on April 16, the rebel bands had stormed
Weinsberg and massacred the inhabitants; within the next
two weeks cloisters and castles were burned to the ground,
while violence, anarchy, and rapine followed with all the
ferocity characteristic of class warfare. The nobles made what
terms they could ; the towns either capitulated or joined the
rising in full force. At Miihlhausen, Miinzer, thinking the

160 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

hour of triumph had come, urged the divine duty of ruthless
slaughter.

The princes were entirely unprepared. Old Frederic was
lying mortally ill at his castle of Lochau. Without troops and
unnerved by disease, he wrote his brother John that if it was
God's will that the common man should rule he would not re-
sist it. John, too, was without hope : " There are thirty-five
thousand men in the field against us," he wrote ; " we are but
lost princes."

For one awful moment it looked as if the insurgents would
carry all before them. Luther saw the whole of Germany
threatened with anarchy, and the Evangelic cause with extinc-
tion. Never found wanting in the hour of danger, he continued
his journey through the disaffected districts, preaching against
the rising. According to the somewhat unreliable table-talk
he met with a hostile reception at some places ; at any rate his
intervention did no good. He found himself, on May 4, at See-
burg, in Mansfeld. Not a single blow had yet been struck in
the cause of order. Luther saw that the only means left to re-
store peace was force, and accordingly wrote the following stern
letter to one of the councillors of the Count of Mansfeld : —

TO JOHN RUHEL AT MANSFELD

Sebbueg, May 4, 1525.

Grace and peace in Christ. Honored and dear doctor and friend !
I have been intending to answer your last tidings, recently shown me,
here on my journey. First of all I beg you not to make our gracious
lord, Count Albert, weak in this matter, but let him go on as he has
begun, though it will only make the devil still angrier, so that he will
rage more than ever through those limbs of Satan he has possessed.
We have God's Word, which lies not but says, " He beareth not the
sword in vain, etc.," so there is no doubt that his lordship has been
ordained and commanded of God. His Grace will need the sword to
punish the wicked as long as there are such sores in the body politic
as now exist. Should the sword be struck out of his Grace's hand by
force, we must suffer it, and give it back to God, who first gave it and
can take it back how and when he will.

May his Grace also have a good conscience in case he should have
to die for God's Word, for God has so ordered it, if he permits it ; no

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 161

one should leave off the good work until he is prevented by force,
just as in battle no one should forego an advantage or leave off fight-
ing until he is overcome.

If there were thousands more peasants than there are they would
all be robbers and murderers, who take the sword with criminal in-
tent to drive out lords, princes, and all else, and make a new order in
the world for which they have from God neither command, right,
power, nor injunction, as the lords now have to suppress them. They
are faithless and perjured, and still worse they bring the Divine Word
and gospel to shame and dishonor, a most horrible sin. If God in his
wrath really lets them accomplish their purpose, for which he has
given them no command nor right, we must suffer it as we do other
wickedness, but not acquiesce in it as if they did right.

I hope they will have no success nor staying power, although God
at times plagues the world with desperate men as he has done and yet
does with the Turks. It is the devil's mockery that the peasants give
out that they will hurt no one and do no harm. No harm to drive out
and kill their masters ? If they mean no harm, why do they gather in
hordes and demand that others surrender to them ? To do no harm
and yet to take all — that is what the devil, too, knows how to do. If
we let him do what he likes, forsooth he harms no one.

Their only reason for driving out their lords is pure wickedness.
Look at the government they have set up, the worst that ever was,
without order or discipline in it but only pillage. If God wishes to
chastize us in his wrath, he can find no fitter instrument than these
enemies of his, criminals, robbers, murderers, faithless, perjured peas-
ants. If it be God's will, let us suffer it and call them lords as the Scrip-
ture calls the devil prince and lord. May God keep all good Christians
from honoring and worshipping them as the devil tried to make Christ
worship him. Let us withstand them by word and deed as long as ever
we can and then die for it in God's name.

They purpose to hurt no one if only we yield to them ; and so we
should yield to them, should we ? Must we indeed acknowledge as our
rulers these faithless, perjured, blasphemous robbers, who have no
right from God, but only the support of the prince of this world, as he
boasts in Matthew, chapter four, that he has dominion and honor over
all the world to give it to whom he will ? That is true enough when
God punishes and does not protect.

This matter concerns me deeply, for the devil wishes to kill me.
I see that he is angry that hitherto he has been able to accomplish
nothing either by fraud or force ; he thinks that if he were only free of

162 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

me he could do as he liked and confound the whole world together, so
I almost believe that I am the cause that the devil can do such things
in the world, whereby God punishes it. Well, if I ever get home I will
meet my death with God's aid, and await my new masters, the mur-
derers and robbers who tell me they will harm no one. Highway rob-
bers always say the same : " I will do you no harm, but give me all
you have or you shall die." Beautiful innocence ! How fairly the devil
decks himself and his murderers ! Before I would yield and say what
they want, I would lose my head a hundred times, God granting me
his grace. If I can do it before I die, I will yet take my Katie to wife
to spite the devil, when I hear that they are after me. I hope they
will not take away my joy and good spirits.

Some say the insurgents are not followers of Mtinzer — that let their
own god believe, for no one else will.

I write to strengthen you to strengthen others, especially my gracious
lord Count Albert. Encourage his Grace to go forth with good spirit,
and may God grant him success, and let him fulfil the divine injunc-
tion to bear the sword as long as ever he can ; conscience at least is
safe in case he fall. If God permit the peasants to extirpate the princes
to fulfil his wrath, he will give them hell fire for it as a reward. The
just judge will come shortly to judge both them and us — us with
grace, as we have suffered by their crimes of violence, them with wrath,
for they who take the sword must perish by the sword as Christ said.
Their work and success cannot long stand.

Greet your dear wife for me.

Dr. Martin Luther.

Very soon after writing this letter, Luther published a short
tract Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of Peasants,
expressed in much the same tone : —

"In my former book" (Exhortation to Peace) he writes, "I dared
not judge the peasants, since they asked to be instructed, and Christ
says Judge not. But before I could look around they forget their re-
quest and betake themselves to violence, — rob, rage, and act like mad
dogs, whereby one may see what they had in their false minds, and
that their pretence to speak in the name of the gospel in the Twelve
Articles was a simple lie. They do mere devil's work, especially that
Satan of Muhlhausen does nothing but rob, murder, and pour out
blood."

The peasants have deserved death for three reasons : (1) because they

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 163

have broken their oath of fealty ; (2) for rioting and plundering ; and
(3) for having covered their terrible sins with the name of the gospel.
<k Wherefore, my lords, free, save, help, and pity the poor people ; stab,
smite, and slay, all ye that can. If you die in battle you could never
have a more blessed end, for you die obedient to God's Word in Ro-
mans 13, and in the service of love to free your neighbor from the
bands of hell and the devil. I implore every one who can to avoid the
peasants as he would the devil himself. I pray God will enlighten
them and turn their hearts. But if they do not turn, I wish them no
happiness for ever more. . . . Let none think this too hard who con-
siders how intolerable is rebellion."

Almost as Luther was writing, steps were taken to suppress
the insurgents. On May 5 the Count of Mansfeld, with a few
personal retainers, scattered a small band near Osterhausen, a
success insignificant in itself but important as the first blow
struck for order in central Germany.

The decisive battle followed not long after. Philip of Hesse,
the ablest of the Evangelic princes after Frederic the Wise,
having come to terms with his own peasants by negotiation,
gathered an army and marched, in cooperation with other
lords, against eight thousand rebels at Frankenhausen. Hoping
to come to a peaceful agreement, Philip found the peasants
ready to negotiate until on May 12 Miinzer arrived with rein-
forcements from Miihlhausen and roused the poor men by his
baleful eloquence to such a pitch of fanaticism, that, in reliance
on divine help, they refused all terms. When the troops at-
tacked them on May 15, the raw countrymen fled in the wildest
panic, more than half of them perishing on the field. Miinzer
was captured and put to death.

Riihel sent the tidings to Luther on May 21, and received
the following answer : —

TO JOHN RUHEL AT MANSFELD

Wittenberg, May 23, 1525.
God's grace and peace. I thank you, honored and dear sir, for your
news. I am especially pleased at the fall of Thomas Miinzer. Please
let me have further details of his capture and of how he acted, for it
is important to know how that proud spirit bore itself.

164 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

*" It is pitiful that we have to be so cruel to the poor people, but what
can we do ? It is necessary and God wills it that fear may be brought
on the people. Otherwise Satan brings forth mischief. God said : Who
hath taken the sword shall perish by the sword. It is gratifying that
their spirit be at last so plainly revealed, so that henceforth the peas-
ants will know how wrong they were and perhaps leave off rioting, or
at least do it less. Do not be troubled about the severity of their sup-
pression, for it will profit many souls. . . .

After the lords had the upper hand the insurrection was
put down with the utmost cruelty. At Frankenhausen and else-
where the soldiers far outdid the peasants in acts of violence
and blood. It is estimated that one hundred thousand of the
poor rustics perished, and the rest sank back into a more
wretched state than before.

The danger past and the pity of the public aroused, Luther's
enemies raised a great outcry against him, accusing him of be-
traying his allies and the men whom his teaching had mis-
guided, and most of all for the cruelty of his pamphlet. What-
ever foundation these charges may have, there is absolutely none
in the accusation that he sided with the insurgents while they
seemed likely to win and then turned to curry favor with the
princes when they had triumphed. The direct opposite was
the truth, and Luther, excited by these widespread charges,
defends himself with spirit in a letter to an old colleague.

TO NICHOLAS AMSDORF AT MAGDEBURG

Wittenberg, May 30, 1525.

Grace and peace. You write of a new honor for me, dear Amsdorf,
namely that I am called the toady of the princes ; Satan has conferred
many such honors upon me during the past years. . . .

My opinion is that it is better that all the peasants be killed than
that the princes and magistrates perish, because the rustics took the
sword without divine authority. The only possible consequence of
their satanic wickedness would be the diabolic devastation of the
kingdom of God. Even if the princes abuse their power, yet they have
it of God, and under their rule the kingdom of God at least has a
chance to exist. Wherefore no pity, no tolerance should be shown to
the peasants, but the fury and wrath of God should be visited upon
those men who did not heed warning nor yield when just terms were

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 165

offered them, but continued with satanic fury to confound every-
thing. ... To justify, pity, or favor them is to deny, blaspheme, and
try to pull God from heaven. ...

Thus also, in a note inviting John Riihel to his wedding
feast, the Reformer says (June 15, 1526) : " What an outcry of
Harrow has been caused by my pamphlet against the peasants.
All is now forgotten that God has done for the world through
me. Now lords, priests, and peasants are all against me and
threaten my death."

Riihel accepted the invitation and brought with him a letter
from the Chancellor Caspar Miiller suggesting that the Reformer
should defend himself against the attacks made upon him. In
answer to this Luther published in July an open letter to
Miiller, under the title : On the Hard Pamphlet against the
Peasants. In this he has nothing to retract. " One cannot
answer a rebel with reason," he argues, " but the best answer is
to hit him with the fist until blood flows from his nose." (Mit
der faust mus man solchen meulern antworten, das der schweys
zur nasen ausgehe.) He never meant to urge slaughter after
battle, u but neither did I undertake to instruct those mad, rag-
ing, insane tyrants, who even after combat cannot satiate their
thirst for blood and never in their whole life long ask after
Christ, for it is all the same to such bloodhounds whether they
are guilty or innocent, or whether they please God or the devil.
They use the sword to satisfy their passions, so I leave them to
their master the devil."

That Luther really pitied the poor people after their defeat
is shown by an intercessory letter : —

TO ALBERT, ARCHBISHOP AND ELECTOR OF MAYENCE

(Wittenberg,) July 21, 1525.
Grace and peace in Jesus Christ. Most venerable Father in God,
most serene, highborn Prince, most gracious Lord. I am informed
that one Asmus Gunthel, the son of a citizen of Eisleben, has been
arrested by your Grace on the charge of having stormed a barricade.
His father is sore distressed and tells me he did not take part in the
storming, but only ate and drank there at the time, and as he begged
me piteously to intercede for his life I could not refuse him. I humbly

166 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

pray your Grace to consider that this insurrection has been put down
not by the hand of man but by the grace of God who pities us all, and
especially those in authority, and that accordingly you treat the poor
people graciously and mercifully as becomes a spiritual lord even more
than a temporal bne. . . .

Alas ! there are too many who treat the people horribly and so act
unthankfully to God as if they would recklessly awaken the wrath of
Heaven and of the people again and provoke a new and worse rebel-
lion. God has decreed that those who show no mercy should also perish
without mercy.

It is not good for a lord to raise displeasure, ill-will and hostility
among his subjects, and it is likewise foolish to do so. It is right to
show sternness when the commonalty are seditious and stubborn, but
now that they are beaten down they are a different people, worthy that
mercy be shown them in judgment. Putting too much in a bag bursts
it. Moderation is good in all things, and, as St. James says, mercy
rejoiceth against judgment. I hope your Grace will act as a Christian
in this matter. God bless you. Amen.

Your Grace's obedient servant,

Martin Luther.

The Peasants' War was the hardest storm weathered by the
new Church. Had not an iron hand been at the helm it might
well have foundered the ship of reform and scattered all that
was hopeful and good in it in a thousand fragments. As it was, the
cause suffered heavily, and the reputation of its leader suffered
still more. In steering too far from the dread whirlpool which
would have engulfed all his cause, he sailed too close to the Scylla
on the other side and lost men thereby. From his own day to
the present he has been reproached with cruelty to the poor
people who were partly misguided by what they believed to be
his voice. And yet, much as the admirers of Luther must and
do regret his terrible violence of expression, the impartial his-
torian can hardly doubt that in substance he was right. No
government in the world could have allowed rebellion to go
unpunished ; no sane man could believe that any argument but
arms would have availed. Luther first tried the way of peace,
he then risked his life preaching against the rising ; finally he
urged the use of the sword as the ultima ratio. He was right
to do so, though he put himself in the wrong by his immoderate

THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 167

zeal. It would have been more becoming for Luther, the peas-
ant and the hero of the peasants, had he shown greater sym-
pathy with their cause and more mercy. Had he done, so his
name would have escaped the charge of cruelty with which it is
now stained.

CHAPTER XV

CATHARINE VON BORA

From fierce war Luther's thoughts were turned to faithful, if
unromantic love. Although convinced while still at the Wart-
burg of the nullity of vows of celibacy, it was a long time, as
Erasmus sneered, before he made use of the liberty he preached
to others. After all the brothers save one, Brisger, had departed
to take up a worldly career, he continued to reside at the Black
Cloister, as the Augustinian monastery was called, not from its
own color, a brick red, but from the popular designation of its
dark-robed inmates as black monks. Having laid aside their
cowls and assumed the simple garb of laymen, the two like-
minded men dwelt here with one servant, a student of theology
named Sieberger. The building was large, but as the revenues
had been dissipated by the custom of giving a handsome pre-
sent to each departing brother, the two remaining inhabitants
dwelt in poverty, for the professor had a salary of but one hun-
dred gulden. One of his reminiscences of this period paints a
speaking picture of his manner of life : —

Before I was married, the bed was not made up for a whole year
and became foul with sweat. But I worked all day and was so tired at
night that I fell into bed without knowing that anything was amiss.

t*"*""*"M~*7 When at last he decided to marry, it was something of an
^>*-<^v^ . accident that his choice fell upon Catharine von Bora. She had
been born, on January 29, 1499, at Lippendorf, a hamlet some
twenty miles south of Leipsic. The name Bora (cognate in form
and meaning with our word^r) is, like that of Staupitz and
other aristocratic families of the region, of Wendish or Slavonic
origin, but the family, deriving its name from the village of
Bora, was Teutonic. Catharine's father, Hans von Bora, held
modest estates, a portion of which, the farm of Zulsdorf, later
passed by purchase to his famous son-in-law. The mother,

CATHARINE VON BORA 169

Catharine von Haugwitz, died shortly after the birth of her
little girl, and Hans, marrying again, sent his five-year-old
daughter to the convent school of the Benedictine nuns near
Brehna. About four years later he transferred her to a Cister-
cian cloister at Nimbschen near Grimma, intending that in due
time she should become a nun. Nimbschen was a wealthy foun-
dation in which the education of the girls and their taking of
the veil were gratuitous ; it was therefore largely patronized by
gentlemen like Bora of more influence than means. At the time
of her entrance, one of her relatives was abbess, and another,
Auntie Lena, as she afterwards came to be known at Witten-
berg, was a sister.

The quiet years at Nimbschen, hardly broken by Catharine's
consecration as a nun at the age of sixteen (October 8, 1515),
were spent in the round of devotion, learning and teaching,
prayer and charity, which form the routine of monastic life.
The girl was well educated ; besides the elementary accomplish-
ments of reading and writing her own tongue (not so common
then as now), she knew some Latin. The cloister had large es-
tates, tilled under the direct supervision of the nuns, so that she
may have here gained that knowledge of practical farming which
she later turned to good account.

In almost any other age and country, Catharine would have
finished her life in the convent as quietly as she had begun it.
But she lived in stirring times. Luther's proclamation of mon-
astic emancipation was promptly followed by a general evacua-
tion of the cloisters, especially those of his own order, one of
which was situated at Grimma. Inspired by the example of these
monks several of the sisters at Nimbschen tried to follow it. One
who was caught writing to Luther was severely disciplined.
This did not prevent the others from doing the same, and it was
at his advice that, after vainly applying to their relatives to re-
ceive them, twelve of the younger nuns secured the aid of Leon-
ard Coppe, a wealthy and honorable burger of Torgau who had
long stood in business relations with Nimbschen. Though the
attempt was not without danger, for the abduction of a nun
was a capital offence, he, with the assistance of his nephew and
another young man, helped them to escape on the night of April

170 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

4-5, 1523. Three of them went to their own homes, the other nine
were conveyed by Coppe first to Torgau and then to Wittenberg.
The Reformer, who at once took up their cause, defending them
in a publication, announces their arrival in these words: —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

Wittenberg, April 10, 1523.

Grace and peace. Nine fugitive nuns, a wretched crowd, have been
brought to me by honest citizens of Torgau. I mean Leonard Coppe
and his nephew Wolf Tomitzsch ; there is therefore no cause for sus-
picion. I pity them much, but most of all the others who are dying
everywhere in such numbers in their cursed and impure celibacy. This
sex so very, very weak, joined by nature or rather by God to the other,
perishes when cruelly separated. O tyrants ! O cruel parents and kins-
men in Germany ! O Pope and bishops, who can curse you enough ?
Who can sufficiently execrate the blind fury which has taught and en-
forced such things ? But this is not the place to do it.

You ask what I shall do with them ? First I shall inform their re-
latives and ask them to support the girls ; if they will not I shall have
the girls otherwise provided for. Some of the families have already
promised me to take them ; for some I shall get husbands if I can.
Their names are : Magdalene von Staupitz,1 Elsa von Canitz, Ave Gross,
Ave von Schonfeld and her sister Margaret, Laneta von Goltz, Mar-
garet and Catharine Zeschau and Catharine von Bora. Here are they,
who serve Christ, in need of true pity. They have escaped from the
cloister in miserable condition. I pray you also to do the work of
charity and beg some money for me from your rich courtiers, by which
I can support the girls a week or two until their kinsmen or others
provide for them. For my Capernaans have no wealth but that of the
Word, so that I myself could not find the loan of ten gulden for a poor
citizen the other day. The poor, who would willingly give, have nothing ;
the rich either refuse or give so reluctantly that they lose the credit of
the gift with God and take up my time begging from them. Nothing
is too much for the world and its way. Of my annual salary I have only
ten or fifteen gulden left, besides which not a penny has been given
me by my brothers or by the city. But I ask them for nothing, to em-
ulate the boast of Paul, despoiling other churches to serve my Corinth-
ians free. . . . Farewell and pray for me.

Martin Luther.

1 A sister of Luther's friend John von Staupitz, but much younger than her
brother.

CATHARINE VON BORA 171

Luther was as good as his word in providing for the fugi-
tives. For Staupitz's sister he interceded so effectually with the
clergy of Grimma that a little house was presented her in that
town in remembrance of her brother. For another nun the Re-
former secured the position of teacher, while most of the rest
returned to their relatives or married. The three who remained
longest at Wittenberg were Ave and Margaret von Schonfeld
and Catharine von Bora. For Ave Luther felt a certain attrac-
tion, even love, but she, too, as well as her sister, married, and
of all the Nimbschen runaways, Catharine, whose father was
now dead, was left alone. She had been taken into the house
of the rich and honorable Reichenbach, who at times held the
office of burgomaster at Wittenberg. Here the girl lived about
two years, during which time she learned housekeeping, and
a marvellously apt pupil she was, to judge by her later manage.

What a contrast was Wittenberg to Nimbschen ! A good
deal of the world could be seen in this little town, with its
students from all parts of Germany and from foreign lands,
too. Here Catharine learned to know many a great man, Lucas
Cranach, the artist, and Philip Melanchthon, the preceptor of
the fatherland. In October, 1523, she was presented to King
Christian II of Denmark, on his visit to Wittenberg, and was
given a gold ring by the lavish monarch. In all her new ex-
periences the girl's piety and modesty, or perhaps something
in her looks, won her the nickname^of St. Catharine of
Siena.

Then she had an unhappy love-affair. Jerome Baumgartner,
a promising youth who had graduated from the university in
1521, in the autumn of 1523 made a long visit to Melanchthon.
When he returned to his native Nuremberg there was an un-
derstanding, though not a formal engagement, that he should
come back and marry Katie. The young man, though his later
career was highly honorable, was unable in this case to fulfil
his intentions, and his failure to return was so taken to heart
by the poor girl that she actually became ill over it. About
a year after Baumgartner 's departure, Luther wrote him : " If
you want your Katie you had best act quickly before she is
given to some one else who wants her. She has not yet con-

172 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

quered her love for you and I would willingly see you married
to each other." (October 12, 1524.)

Jerome, however, stayed away and in January his betrothal to
a rich girl was announced.

The suitor who wanted Katie was a certain Dr. Glatz. The
Eeformer himself had no intention of marriage : " Not that I
lack the feelings of a man," as he wrote Spalatin on November
30, " for I am neither wood nor stone, but my mind is averse
to matrimony because I daily expect the death decreed to the
heretic."

But a little more than a month after this, Luther preached
and published his sermon on marriage, highly extolling that
estate as the one honored by all the patriarchs and prophets,
and pointing out the duties both of those who wished to marry
and of husbands and wives. A little later he issued a regular
manifesto in the form of an open letter to a friend who was
considering wedlock. One can easily see that the arguments
here given apply equally well to the writer's position : —

TO WOLFGANG REISSENBUSCH AT LICHTENBERG

Wittbnberg, March 27, 1525.

God's grace and peace in Christ. Honored Sir ! I am moved by
good friends and by the esteem I bear you to write you this epistle on
the estate of matrimony, as I have noticed you would like to marry,
or rather are forced to do so by God himself, who gave you a nature
requiring it.

I do not think you should be hindered by the rule of the Order or
by a vow, for no vow can bind or be valid except under two condi-
tions. First, a vow must be possible of performance, for who would
vow an impossible thing, or who would demand it ? . . . Now chastity
is not in our power, as little as are God's other wonders and graces,
but we are made for marriage as the Scripture says : It is not good
for man to be alone : I will make an help meet for him.

Who, therefore, considers himself a man, should hear what God
decrees for him. . . . This is the Word of God, through whose power
seed is created in man's body and the burning desire for the woman
kindled and kept alight which cannot be restrained by vows nor
laws. . . .

Secondly, that a vow may be valid it must not be against God and

CATHARINE VON BORA 173

the Christian faith, and everything is against that which relies on
works and not on God's grace. . . .

It would be a fine, noble example if you married, that would help
many feeble ones and give them more scope, so that they might escape
the dangers of the flesh. What harm is it if people say: "So the
Lichtenberg professor has taken a wife, has he ? " Is it not a great
glory that you should thereby become an example to others to do the
same ? Christ was an example to us all how to bear reproach for con-
science' sake. Do I say reproach ? Only fools and fanatics think mar-
riage a reproach, men who do not mind fornication but forbid what
God has commanded. If it is a shame to take a wife, why is it not a
shame to eat and drink, for we have equal need of both and God wills
both? . . .

Friend, let us not fly higher nor try to be better than Abraham,
David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and all the patriarchs, prophets, and apos-
tles, as well as many holy martyrs and bishops, who knew that God
had made them men and were not ashamed to be and to be thought so
and therefore considered that they should not remain alone. . . .

Luther was evidently intending to marry. In casting about
for an eligible wife, his first choice did not fall upon Katie but
one of the other nuns. In 1538 he spoke of this inclination in
rather a tasteless and rather a heartless way : —

Had I wished to marry fourteen years ago, I should have chosen
Ave von SchOnfeld, now wife of Basil Axt. I never loved my wife
but suspected her of being proud (as she is), but God willed me to take
pity on the poor abandoned girl and he has made my marriage turn
out most happily.

For another girl, perhaps Ave Alemann of Magdeburg,
Luther also had a certain liking, but this yielded to circum-
stances and Katie became the sole object of his attentions. When
he had tried to marry her to Dr. Glatz, Baumgartner's rival,
she absolutely refused, saying that she would take Amsdorf or
Luther himself but Glatz never. This naturally brought her to
the Reformer's attention. He speaks of his various love-affairs
in a jocose letter to his confidant : —

174 THE LIFE AND] LETTERS OP MARTIN LUTHER !

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT LOCHAU *

(Wittenberg,) April 16, 1525.
I have commended everything to friend Cranach and have asked
him to be sure to send a hundred copies of my letter to Reissenbusch.

You write me about my marriage. Do not be surprised if I, so fam-
ous a lover, do not wed, though it is really wonderful that I who write
so much about marriage and have so much intercourse with women
should not turn into a woman, let alone marry one. If you wish for my
example you already have it. For I have had three wives at once and
loved them so hard that I drove two away to get other husbands. On
the third I have a precarious hold, but she, too, may soon be torn from
me. It is really you who are the timid lover, not daring to marry even
one. But take care, lest I, the old bachelor, should get ahead of lusty
young bridegrooms like you, for God is accustomed to do what we least
expect. I say this seriously to encourage you. Farewell, dear Spalatin.

Martin Luther.

On the same day on which he wrote this letter Luther started
on his trip to Mansfeld to preach against the peasants' rising.
His already half -formed purpose of taking the frank nun at her
word was increased by his father, whom he saw at this time and
who urged him to marry. His first announcement of his inten-
tion is in the letter to Ruhel of May 4, where he says he will
take "his Katie" to wife "to spite the devil." The formal be-
trothal followed soon after, and the wedding, hastened on by
malicious gossip about the pair, took place very privately at the
Black Cloister on the evening of June 13. Owing to its sud-
denness the customary festivities had to be put off until two
weeks later, June 27. Among the invitations sent far and wide,
the following have an especial interest : —

TO JOHN RUHEL, JOHN THUR AND CASPAR MULLER AT MANSFELD

Wittenberg, June 15, 1525.
Grace and peace in Christ. What an outcry of Harrow, my dear
sirs, has been caused by my pamphlet against the peasants ! All is now
forgotten that God has done for the world through me. Now lords,
parsons, and peasants are all against me and threaten my death.
1 Spalatin was now here with his dying master.

CATHARINE VON BORA 175

Well, since they are so silly and foolish, I shall take care that at my
end I shall be found in the state for which God created me with nothing
of my previous papal life about me. I will do my part even if they act
still more foolishly up to the last farewell.

So now, according to the wish of my dear father, I have married. I
did it quickly lest those praters should stop it. Thursday week, June
27, it is my intention to have a little celebration and house-warming,
to which I beg that you will come and give your blessings. The land
is in such a state that I hardly dare ask you to undertake the journey;
however, if you can do so, pray come, along with my dear father and
mother, for it would be a special pleasure to me. Bring any friends.
If possible let me know beforehand, though I do' not ask this if incon-
venient.

I would have written my gracious lords Counts Gebhard and Albert

of Mansf eld, but did not risk it, knowing that their Graces have other

things to attend to. Please let me know if you think I ought to invite

them. God bless you. Amen.

Martin Luther.

TO GEORGE SPALATIN

Wittenberg, June 16, 1525.

Grace and peace. Dear Spalatin, I have stopped the mouths of my
calumniators with Catharine von Bora. If we have a banquet to cele-
brate the wedding we wish you not only to be present but to help us
in case we need game. Meantime give us your blessing and pray for us.

I have made myself so cheap and despised by this marriage that I
expect the angels laugh and the devils weep thereat. The world and
its wise men have not yet seen how pious and sacred is marriage, but
they consider it impious and devilish in me. It pleases me, however, to
have my marriage condemned by those who are ignorant of God. Fare-
well and pray for me.

Martin Luther.

To Katie's old acquaintance and rescuer he wrote, June 21 :

God has suddenly and unexpectedly caught me in the bond of
holy matrimony. I intend to celebrate with a wedding breakfast on
Thursday. That my parents and all good friends may be merry, my
Lord Catharine and I kindly beg you to send us, at my cost and as
quickly as possible, a barrel of the best Torgau beer.

To Amsdorf the bridegroom confides that " I married to grat-

176 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ify my father, who asked me to marry and leave him descend-
ants. ... I was not carried away by passion, for I do not love
my wife that way, but esteem her as a friend. (Non amo sed
diligo)."

The proudest of the many guests on the great day were
assuredly old Hans and Margaret Luther. Among the wedding
presents the most prized came from the town, the university,
the Elector, and Cranach. Ruhel brought a surprise in the way
of twenty gulden from Albert of Mayence, who was thinking of
becoming Lutheran in order to turn his electorate into a tem-
poral fief as his cousin Albert had done with Prussia. The
bridegroom wanted to return this gift, but the thrifty bride
managed to keep it.

At this time Martin and Katie sat for their pictures to the
celebrated Lucas Cranach. The bridegroom is forty-two, well
built and very pale. His face is at once good-humored and
strong. And yet who can be satisfied with this picture ? Diirer's
criticism that the Wittenberg artist could depict the features
but not the soul is extremely just.

The portrait of Katie does not bear out the conjecture of
Erasmus that the monk had been led astray by a wonderfully
charming girl (mire venusta). She was of a type not uncommon
among Germans, in whose features shrewdness, good sense, and
kindliness often give a pleasant expression to homely persons
— though even this can hardly be seen in Cranach's picture.
Her scant reddish hair is combed back over a high forehead ;
the brows over her dark blue eyes slant up from a rather flat
nose ; her ears and cheek-bones are prominent.

Katie was sometimes reproached with pride and avarice. But
that an orphan, without friends, money, or beauty should have
any pride left is rather a subject for praise than blame, and
what is sometimes called her greed of money was only the nec-
essary parsimony of a housewife in narrow circumstances whose
husband was uncommonly generous. Without marked spiritu-
ality, she was a Martha busied with many things rather than a
Mary sitting in devotion at her master's feet. If there was little
passion and no romance in the courtship, there was deep devo-
tion and friendship in the twenty years following marriage. Of

CATHARINE VON BORA 177

his own thoughts, and his wife's affection during their first year
together, the Reformer once spoke thus : —

In the first year of marriage one has strange thoughts. At table he
thinks : " Formerly I was alone, now I am with some one. In bed
when he wakes, he sees beside him a pair of pigtails which he did not
see before. The first year after our marriage Katie sat beside me when
I studied, and once, when she could think of nothing else to say, asked
me : ' Doctor, is the Grand Master of Prussia the Margrave's
brother ? ' " l

A still more intimate view of the relations of man and wife
is given in the next letter to Spalatin. Luther lived in a time
when it was considered not at all indelicate to speak of what
few refined men, not to say pious preachers, would mention in
these days. Spalatin had now retired from his position at court,
married, and taken the incumbency of the first church at Alten-
burg. Here he remained the trusted counsellor of Frederic's
successor, John the Steadfast. Though the new elector was an
open convert to the Evangelic faith, as his brother had not
been, nevertheless there was a party at court so hostile to Luther,
whom they regarded as the real author of the peasants' rising,
that when Spalatin invited the Wittenberg professor to attend
his wedding, the latter felt unable to do it.

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG*

Wittenberg, December 6, 1525.
I wish you grace and peace in the Lord, and also joy with your
sweetest little wife, also in the Lord. Your marriage is as pleasing to
me as it is displeasing to those priests of Baal.2 Indeed God has given
me no greater happiness, except the Gospel, than to see you married,
though this, too, is a gift of the Gospel, and no small fruit of our
Evangelic teaching. Why I am absent, and wherefore I could not come
to your most pleasing wedding, Brisger 8 will tell you. All things are
changed under the new elector, who right nobly confesses the Evan-
gelic faith. I am less safe on the road than I was under an elector who
dissimulated his faith, but now where one hopes for citadels of refuge

1 The Grand Master was the Margrave !

2 The canons of Altenburg, with whom Luther had had a hard fight.

8 The brother who had hitherto lived with Luther ; he was the bearer of this
letter to Altenburg1, where he was soon to become pastor.

178 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

one is forced to fear dens of robbers and traitors. I wish you great
happiness and children, with Christ's blessing. Believe me, my mind
exults in your marriage no less than yours did in mine. Poor as I am
I would have sent you that Portuguese gold-piece x which you gave
my wife, did I not fear that it would offend you. So I am sending you
what is left over from my wedding, not knowing whether it will also
be left over from yours or not. . . . Greet your wife kindly from me.
When you have your Catharine in bed, sweetly embracing and kissing
her, think : Lo this being, the best little creation of God, has been given
me by Christ, to whom be glory and honor. I will guess the day on
which you will receive this letter and that night my wife and I will
particularly think of you.2 My rib and I send greetings to you and
your rib. Grace be with you. Amen.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

Luther's marriage excited the interest of all Europe. Henry
VIII of England and many other enemies taunted him with it
as if it were a crime. Erasmus sneered that what he had taken
to be a tragedy had turned out a comedy. Even Melanchthon
disliked the step. To his best pupil, Camerarius, he wrote a
letter on June 16 in Greek, at that time almost a cipher,
saying : —

On June 13 Luther unexpectedly married Mistress von Bora, hav-
ing announced his intention to none of his friends, but in the evening
only inviting Bugenhagen, Cranach, and Apel to supper, after which he
completed the usual ceremonies. You may perhaps be surprised that
at this unhappy time, when all good gentlemen are suffering, Luther
does not sympathize with them, but, as it seems, prefers a life of pleas-
ure and to lower his dignity, though Germany has now the greatest
need of his wisdom and strength. I think it came about in this way.
The man is very facile and the nuns tried every plan to inveigle him.
Perhaps the much intercourse with the nuns softened and inflamed him,
noble and magnanimous as he is. ... I hope this manner of life will
make him more reverend and especially that he will cast away the
scurrility with which we have of ten, reproached him.

The marriage did indeed turn out happily. After his hard
experiences in the monastery, Luther's whole nature blossomed

1 Portugaliensis, a coin worth about seven dollars.

2 Ea nocte simili opere meam [uxorem] amabo in tui memoriam, et tibi par pari
referam.

CATHARINE VON BORA 179

out in response to the warm sun of domestic life. A true instinct
for the best side of the man has made artists love to portray him
surrounded by wife and children.

Katie was a woman of enormous energy — the morning star
of Wittenberg as her husband called her with reference to her
early rising. Her superintendence of a large household and
growing estate was masterly. She faithfully cared for her hus-
band on the numerous occasions when he was ill, and of course
much of her time was taken up with the children whom she
nursed and tended in the unabashed publicity of her crowded
home. She took a lively interest in her husband's affairs and
was confided in by him. Her piety is more a matter of infer-
ence than record ; Martin probably appealed to her weaker side
when he offered her a large sum to read the Bible through.
That her studies in this book were successful may be inferred
from her husband's remark that " Katie understands the Bible
better than any papists did twenty years ago." Her picture, like
that of her husband, is drawn to the life in the table-talk.
Among many sayings taken down during the last fifteen years
of Luther's life (1531-1546) the following give a charming
picture of his conjugal felicity: —

I would not change my Katie for France and Venice, because God
has given her to me, and other women have much worse faults, and
she is true to me and a good mother to my children. If a husband
always kept such things in mind he would easily conquer the tempta-
tion to discord which Satan sows between married people.

The greatest happiness is to have a wife to whom you can trust your
business and who is a good mofher to your children. Katie, you have
a husband who loves you ; many an empress is not so well off.

I am rich, God has given me my nun and three children : what
care I if I am in debt, Katie pays the bills.

Luther loved to poke good-natured fun at his wife, but she
was usually able to hold her own : —

Luther : We shall yet see the day when a man will take several
wives.

Katie : The devil thinks so.

Luther : The reason, dear Katie, is that a woman can have only
one child a year, whereas a man can beget several.

180 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Katie : Paul says, " Let each man have his own wife."

Luther : Aye, his own wife, but not only one ; that is not in Paul.
Thus the doctor joked a long time until Katie said : " Before I would
stand that I would go back to the convent and leave you and your
children."

Something struck Katie in the side and she cried out, "Ave Maria/ "
The doctor said : " Why don't you finish your prayer ? Would it not
be a comfort to say * Jesus Christ ' too ? "

Speaking jocosely of Katie's loquacity he said : " Will you not pre-
face your long sermons with a prayer ? If you do, your prayer will
doubtless be long enough to prevent your preaching at all."

While he was talking in an inspired way during dinner, his wife
said : " Why do you keep talking all the time instead of eating ? " He
replied : " I must again wish that women would pray before they
preach. Say the Lord's prayer before you speak."

" Women's sermons only make one tired. They are so tedious that
one forgets what they are saying before they finish." By this name he
called the long speeches of his wife with which she was always inter-
rupting his best sayings.

November 4 (1538) a learned Englishman who did not know Ger-
man came to table. Luther said : " I will let my wife be your teacher.
She knows the tongue so thoroughly that she completely beats me. But
eloquence is not to be praised in women ; it becomes them better to
stammer and lisp."

While Luther gladly devolved upon Katie the care of the
household and property — tasks for which he had neither time,
aptitude, nor inclination — he had no idea of letting himself be
ruled by her — indulgence to wives he once described as "the
vice of the age." At other times he said: —

My wife can persuade me anything she pleases, for she has the gov-
ernment of the house in her hands alone. I willingly yield the direction
of domestic affairs, but wish my rights to be respected. Women's rule
never did any good.

The inferior ought not to glory over the superior, but the superior
over the inferior. Katie can rule the servants but not me. David gloried
in his own righteousness before men, not before God.

George Karg has taken a rich wife and sold his freedom. I am luck-
ier, for when Katie gets saucy she gets nothing but a box on the ear.

This is the only time corporal chastisement of the wife is ever

CATHARINE VON BORA 181

mentioned in respect to Katie, though the practice was not
unknown to the best society of the day. In spite of a little blus-
tering it is probable that Luther gave in as often as not : —

As we were sitting in the garden, Jonas remarked that the women
were becoming our masters, to which the town-councillor of Torgau
added that it was indeed, alas ! true. Luther said : " But we have to
give in, otherwise we would have no peace."

A priest came to Luther complaining of misery and want. Melanch-
thon, who was present, said : " You have vowed poverty, obedience,
and chastity, now practise them " ; and Luther added : u I, too, have
to be obedient to my wife and all kinds of desperate fools and knaves
and ingrates."

" I must have patience with the Pope, ranters, insolent nobles, my
household and Katie von Bora, so that my whole life is nothing else
but mere patience."

In general Katie seems to have enjoyed good health. In the
winter of 1539-40, however, she had a terrible illness resulting
from a miscarriage. For weeks she was prostrate. When the
crisis was past her energy returned faster than her strength, and
one of the most realistic accounts of her tells how she crawled
around the house with the aid of her hands before she was able
to walk upright. Her excellent constitution stood her in good
stead, however, and she recovered rapidly and thoroughly. Her
husband's piety attributed this to the prayers offered for her.

CHAPTER XVI

PRIVATE LIFE. 1522-31

One of Luther's oldest and best friends was his vicar, John
von Staupitz. Though it is probable that the two never agreed
as closely as is usually thought, there can be no doubt of the
great debt of the younger man to the elder and of the sorrow
he felt at their gradual estrangement, and at the death of hi3
"father." Luther was sensible of the coming division as early
as the Leipsic debate ; not long after this (October 3, 1519),
he wrote : —

I have been most sad for you to-day as a weaned child for its
mother. . . . Last night I dreamed that you were leaving me while I
wept bitterly, but you waved to me and bade me cease weeping, for
you would come back to me.

But the elder man did not come back. Notwithstanding great
spiritual insight and devotion, his character lacked something
of the firmness required by the times. His attempt to avoid
taking sides by entering the Benedictine order, his public sub-
mission to the Pope, and the solemn letter Luther wrote him on
that occasion, just before the Diet of Worms, on the duty of
standing by Christ in the hour of danger, have already been
described.1

Staupitz was more than ever alienated from the new teaching
by the innovations of the Wittenberg mob while Martin was at
the Wartburg. Three months after his return, June 27, 1522,
the younger man wrote an earnest defence of his doctrine to
the elder : " I pray you by the bowels of Christ not to believe
our detractors ; all that I have done is to publish the pure
Word without tumult : it is not our fault if good and bad alike
take it up."

Staupitz did not answer this letter, but a year later, Septem-
ber 17, 1523, the Wittenberger wrote him to ask a favor for a
1 Letter of February 9, 1521, p. 107 f.

PRIVATE LIFE 183

fugitive monk. " Reverend Father in Christ," he remonstrated,
" your silence is most unjust, and you know what we are obliged
to think of it. But even if you are no longer pleased with me,
it is not fitting that I should forget you, who first made the
light of the gospel shine in my heart."

The answer to this, dated Salzburg April 1, 1524, is a remark-
able tribute to the personality of the younger man. " My love to
you," protests the writer, " is most constant, passing the love
of women, always unbroken. . . . But as I do not grasp all
your ideas, I keep silence about them. ... It seems to me
that you condemn many things which are merely indifferent
. . . but we owe much to you, Martin, for having led us back
from the husks which the swine did eat to the pastures of life
and the words of salvation." The letter closes with a request
that the bearer of it be given the degree of master at Witten-
berg, which was promptly complied with. No other epistles
were exchanged between the two friends, the elder of whom
died of a stroke of apoplexy on December 28 of this same year.
This disease was commonly regarded as a special visitation from
Heaven, and Luther once opined that God had thus punished
the vicar for entering the Benedictine order, but added that he
was a noble-minded man.

The work of teaching in the university, interrupted by the
momentous events of 1521, was taken up again in 1522, and
continued, with a few short breaks, for the rest of the pro-
fessor's life. During his absence Melanchthon had consented,
rather against his will, to lecture on the Bible, and his work
proved such a success that his friend begged him to continue
it. Luther met his colleague's plea that he was paid to teach
Greek by writing to the Elector Frederic, saying : —

Your Grace doubtless knows that there are fine youths here,
hungry for the wholesome Word, coming from abroad and enduring
poverty to study. . . . Now I have proposed that Melanchthon lecture
on the Bible, for which he is more richly endowed by God's grace
than am I. . . . But he alleges that he is appointed to teach Greek.
. . . Wherefore I beg your Grace to see fit to pay him his salary for
lecturing on the Bible, as there are plenty of young men who can
teach Greek.

184 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Frederic's answer, if he wrote any, is not extant : he was
soon to be too much preoccupied with the rising of the rustics
to be able to attend to his once cherished seat of learning. This
civil war had a disastrous effect on the university : not only did
funds run very short, but the number of students fell from
five or six hundred to forty in the summer semester of 1525.
Seriously alarmed at this state of affairs, Luther wrote, shortly
after the death of Frederic, to his successor John, and to the
latter's son : —

TO JOHN FKEDEKIC OF SAXONY

, Wittenberg, May 20, 1525.

I have previously written my gracious Lord, your Grace's father,
about putting the university in order and appointing some one to take
charge of it. It is true that your Grace is very busy about other
things, but here, too, delay is dangerous, as the matter has hung fire
long enough and become tangled ; moreover, men whose places we
cannot easily fill have left us, so that our neighbors are rejoicing as if
it were already up with Wittenberg. If we are to have a university
here at all we must act betimes. It would be a shame that such a
university as this, from which the gospel has gone out over the whole
world, should perish. We need men everywhere and must take the
necessary means to train them. I humbly beg your Grace to act
quickly and not be held back by the courtiers who speak scornfully of
book learning. For your Grace knows that the world cannot be ruled
by force alone, but that there must be learned men to help with God's
work and keep a hold on the people with teaching and preaching, for
if there were no teachers or preachers the civil power would not long
stand, not to mention the fact that the kingdom of God would entirely

leave us. ...

Your Grace's obedient,

Martin Luther.

These appeals were effective. Spalatin was sent to reorganize
the university. The professors' salaries were raised — - Luther's
from one to two hundred gulden — from funds provided by the
appropriation of the income of the endowed masses of the Castle
Church, which Frederic had been too conservative to touch.
The curriculum, too, was reformed, according to the ideas ex-
pressed in the Address to the German Nobility. A professor of

PRIVATE LIFE 185

Hebrew had been secured from Lou vain in 1519, but soon
proved unsatisfactory, and his place was taken by another,
Aurogallus, who was a great help in the translation of the Old
Testament now under way.

Luther's own lectures on the Bible were soon resumed and
steadily continued ; on 2 Peter, Jude, and Genesis, 1523-1524 ;
on Deuteronomy, 1523-1525. In his commentary on the Minor
Prophets, 1524-1526, he perhaps reached the height of his ex-
egetical ability. He showed a real historical sense, expounding
the messages of the prophets with reference to the circumstances
of their own days. One can see that his translation of the Bible
into German is always in his mind, for he is continually search-
ing for apt German words and phrases. These lectures, com-
pared even with those on Romans and Galatians, show that he
had almost entirely emancipated himself from the old commen-
taries of Lyra and the scholastics. It is noticeable that he took
Jonah, whale and all, literally. That even here, however, his
historical sense and his humor were not dormant may be gath-
ered from the remark, made at another time, that if Jonah
were not in the Bible he would laugh at it.

He next took up Ecclesiastes, which he called u the hardest
of all books." He noticed the peculiarities of the vocabulary
and explained them by saying : " Solomon tried to be more
elegant than his father David." Simultaneously he was lectur-
ing on 1 John, which he called " a noble epistle, having John's
style and manner, able to raise up afflicted hearts, so fairly and
sweetly does it depict Christ for us." Courses on Titus, Phile-
mon, and Isaiah were given in the years 1527-1529.

Luther's work for the education of his people did not stop
with his own university. He perpetually and strenuously urged
the extension and reformation of the schools. During the first
quarter of the sixteenth century learning had fallen into con-
tempt for a variety of causes. The principal reason was that
the learning itself was contemptible ; the age had long out-
grown the lore of the schools which passed for erudition ; the
satire levelled against the sophistry of the monks by the Letters
of the Obscure Men, had brought into disrepute all pretensions
to any education whatever. Then came Carlstadt and the

186 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

mystics, who taught that as God had revealed to babes and
sucklings what he had concealed from the wise and prudent, it
was better to preserve innocence and ignorance together. Lastly
the time was, like our own, one of marked materialistic tend-
ency, fostered by the rapid expansion of commerce and in-
dustry.

Luther stemmed the ebbing tide. Early in 1524 he produced
a Letter to the Aldermen and Cities of Germany on the Erec-
tion and Maintenance of Christian Schools. Ranke says : " This
work has the same significance for the development of learning
as the Address to the German Nobility for the temporal estate
in general." The book had a great success, and, followed up as
it was by unremitting efforts in the same direction, it undoubt-
edly had an incalculable effect in popularizing and raising the
standard of education in Germany.

" Now we learn," says the author, " that throughout all Germany
the schools are declining, the universities becoming weak, and the
cloisters are ruined. Such grass dries up, and the flowers fall, as
Isaiah says, when God does not move upon them by his Word. . . .
For the carnal multitude sees that they cannot turn their sons and
daughters out of house and home to live in cloisters and therefore they
will not let them study any more. 'For/ say they, 'why should any
one study who is not going to be a priest, monk, or nun ? Rather let
them learn a trade to support themselves.' "...

Now I beg all my dear friends not to think of this matter so con-
temptuously as many do who do not see what the prince of this
world intends. It is an earnest and great matter, deeply concerning
Christ and all the world, that we should help and counsel the young
people.

The principal reason for education is, of course, in the writ-
er's opinion, that men may read the Word of God. But other
reasons are adduced, the example of Rome being cited, " for
the Romans brought up their children so that by the time they
were fifteen, eighteen, or twenty they knew marvellously well
Latin, Greek, and all the liberal arts, so that they were straight-
way fitted for war or government, and were brilliant, reasoning,
able persons, polished in all the arts and sciences." Men must be
trained to govern, for ignorant governors are as bad as wolves.

PRIVATE LIFE 187

The chief subjects taught should be Latin, Greek, and He-
brew, the last two for the sake of reading the Bible in the orig-
inal, for the mistakes of all the fathers were due to their ignor-
ance of these tongues. The people are congratulated on the
introduction of humaner methods of instilling knowledge : —

Now by God's grace it has come to pass that children may learn
with pleasure, be it a language or some other art or science or history.
Our schools are no more the hell and purgatory in which we were
martyred by declension and conjugation, although we learned nothing
of value with- all our whipping, trembling, anguish, and crying. If
people now take so much time teaching their children to play cards and
dance, why should they not take an equal amount to teach them to read
and learn other things while they are young, idle, and curious ? For
my part, if I had children they would have to learn not only the lan-
guages and history but also singing, music, and the whole mathematics.
... It is a sorrow to me that I was not taught to read more poetry
and history.

Children should therefore go to school an hour or two every
day, learning a trade at home the rest of the time. Girls should
be sent to school as well as boys. Public libraries in each town,
like those. of the monasteries, but with better books, are recom-
mended.

Notwithstanding his other occupations, Luther found time to
preach constantly ; indeed, during the frequent and long absences
of Bugenhagen, the parish priest of Wittenberg, the Reformer
regularly took his place in the pulpit. He often took up one
book of the Bible and preached on it for long periods together.
Thus during the years 1524-1527, he went through Exodus.
The following may serve as a specimen of his homiletic
style : —

But the miracle of the manna helped the children of Israel little,
for it became common and they did not regard it. So the sun rising
daily on us, though a great miracle, has become so customary that we
think it cannot be otherwise. Likewise we esteem it no wonder that
corn and wine grow yearly, yet by these and other daily miracles —
for the growth of corn from the seed is as great a miracle as" the
manna — our faith ought to be strengthened.

Luther did not confine himself to any strict order, however ;

188 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

he often took other texts, and in these cases his sermons per-
haps show more of his thought. For example, one Sunday in
1527, a terrible year of affliction, he preached on Matthew xi,
28 : " Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and
I will give you rest."

Ah, what a rare invitation is this (he comments). Why does he
not call the strong, rich, well, learned, kings and lords ? Why does
he want the sorrowful and laden ? Only because it pleases him to do
so, and where else can one go with his unbelief, hunger, poverty,
shame, and trouble ?

These busy and generally happy years were not entirely free
from ill health. There are some indications that Luther suffered
from a malady of the nerves even as a student at Erfurt and as
a monk. By 1523 this took a more pronounced form, causing
ringing in the ears, f aintness, depression, and irritability. Indi-
gestion with various complications had set in at the Wartburg,
and in 1526 were discovered the first symptoms of the then
common disease of the bladder and kidneys, known as the stone.
These complaints were not allowed as a rule to interfere with
work, but in the summer of 1527 a terrible attack of nervous
prostration for a time interrupted the almost unexampled toil
of the Reformer's life. On July 6, feeling unwell, he arose from
the table and started to go to the bedroom next the dining-
hall, but before he reached the door he fainted and fell. Though
only two days in bed, the patient suffered from weakness and
depression for months afterward. " Satan rages against me with
his whole might," he wrote Agricola on August 21, " and the
Lord has put me in his power like another Job. The devil
tempts me with great infirmity of spirit."

Before he had recovered, the plague broke out at Witten-
berg. The university moved to Jena and most of the clergy
followed. Luther, while admitting that in some cases it was
justifiable for them to do so, declined to imitate them himself,
saying that a good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep,
and only the hireling fled. One of the two who .stayed with him,
the young and talented deacon Rorer, who for several years
had been a literary help to the Reformer, paid heavily for his

PRIVATE LIFE - 189

fidelity in the loss of his wife. Katie was in a situation caus-
ing anxiety, and her baby Hans fell ill. In the midst of these
fightings without and fears within he wrote as follows : —

TO JUSTUS JONAS, AT NORDHAUSEN

(Wittenberg, November 11 ? 1527.)

Grace and peace in the Lord Jesus our Saviour. I thank you, dear
Jonas, for your prayers and occasional letters. I suppose my letter of
day before yesterday reached you. I have not yet read Erasmus or
the sacramentarians except about three quarters of Zwingli's book.
Judases as they are they do well to stamp on my wretched self, making
me feel as did Christ when he said : " He persecuted the poor and
needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart." I bear God's
wrath because I have sinned against him. Pope, emperor, princes,
bishops, and the whole world hate and persecute me, nor is this enough,
but my brothers, too, must add to my sorrows, and my sins and death
and Satan with his angels rage without ceasing. What could save and
console me if even Christ should desert me on whose account they all
hate me? But he will not leave the poor sinner at the end, though I
believe that I am the least of all men. Would that Erasmus and the
sacramentarians might feel the anguish of my heart for a quarter of
an hour ; I can safely say that they would be converted and saved
thereby. . . .

I am anxious about the delivery of my wife, so much has the ex-
ample of Rorer's wife terrified me. . . . My little Hans cannot send
his greetings to you on account of illness, but he looks for your prayers
for him. It is twelve days since he has eaten any solid food, but now
he begins to eat a little. It is wonderful to see how the baby tries to
be strong and happy as usual, but cannot because he is so weak.

Margaret Moch was operated on yesterday, and having thus at last
thrown off the plague begins to convalesce. She is lodged in our usual
winter room ; we live in the lecture hall ; little Hans has my bedroom
and Schurf 's wife his room. We hope the pestilence is passing. Good-
bye, with a kiss to your little daughter and warm greetings to her
mother. . . .

I am sorry Rome was sacked, for it is a great portent. I hope it
may yet be inhabited and have its pontiff before we die. . . .

Martin Luther, Christi lutum.1

1 Christ's mud ; one of Luther's frequent puns on his own name.

190 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

The terrible year passed, and the habitual round of work and
domestic joys and sorrows was resumed. Among the latter the
heaviest that Luther was called upon to bear was the death of
his parents. In February, 1530, his brother James wrote him
of their father's serious illness. Feeling unable to go to his
parent's bedside, the Reformer wrote him a long, hearty letter.
" I would have come to you personally with the greatest readi-
ness," he says, " but good friends persuaded me not to, and I my-
self thought it best not to tempt God by putting myself in peril,
for you know how lords and peasants feel towards me." After
a long exhortation and much ghostly comfort drawn from Scrip-
ture, he closes : —

I hope that your pastor will point out such things to you faithfully,
so that you will not need what I say at all, but yet I write to ask for-
giveness for my bodily absence, which, God knows, causes me heart-
felt sorrow. My Katie, little Hans and Magdalene and Aunt Lena
and all my household send you greetings and pray for you faithfully.
Greet my mother and all dear friends. God's grace and strength be
and abide with you forever. Amen.

Your loving son,

Martin Luther.

The writer of this letter was fond of telling how, when the
Mansfeld pastor read it to old Hans, and asked him if he be-
lieved all that it contained, the latter replied : " Aye ; he would
be a knave who did not."

The aged miner died on May 29. His son was then at the
castle known as Feste Coburg. When he heard the sad news
he wrote Wenzel Link, June 5, 1530 : " Now I am sorrowful,
for I have received tidings of the death of my father, that dear
and gentle old man whose name I bear, and although I am glad
for his sake that his journey to Christ was so easy and pious and
that, freed from the monsters of this world he rests in peace,
nevertheless my heart is moved to sorrow. For under God I
owe my life and bringing up to him."

A year, a month and a day after the demise of her husband
Margaret Luther followed him into the grave. At this time,
too, Martin felt unable to attend his dying parent, although the

PRIVATE LIFE 191

trip to Mansfeld, was only fifty miles. Instead he again wrote
a Scriptural letter recalling Jesus' words, " I have overcome
the world." He closes, " All my children and Katie pray for
you. Some cry, some say while eating, ■ Grandmother is very

m.'"

CHAPTER XVII

HENRY VIII

One of the most curious incidents in Luther's career was his
intercourse with Henry VIII of England. Although perhaps
it had little influence on the Reformer's career, it is worth trac-
ing on account of its intrinsic interest, especially to English
readers.

Within little more than a year after the posting of the
Theses, Luther's works had been exported to England, and that
they attracted the attention of the government maybe inferred
from a letter of Erasmus, who says that but for his intervention
they would have been burned. It was from this " vigilant per-
son" that Henry got his first definite impression of the Reformer.
When he came to Calais in the summer of 1520 the humanist
visited him, and they talked of Luther. "Erasmus especially
wished to get the cooperation of his powerful patron in a plan
he had of making peace by referring the question of heresy to
a board of impartial and learned judges.

It was Cardinal Wolsey, ambitious for the highest place in
the Roman Church, who urged his master to take a decided
part against the German monk. He burned the heretic's books
(May 12, 1521), induced Henry to write to the Emperor in the
interests,of the Catholic Church (May 30, 1521), and, procur-
ing a copy of the Babylonian Captivity, gave it to his master,
who was proud of his attainments, with a suggestion that it
would be a worthy act for him to refute it. Henry complied, and
produced, in the summer of 1521, An Assertion of the Seven
Sacraments, dedicated to Pope Leo, from whom it won for its
author the title Defender of the Faith.

In tone the work is as violent as most of the invective of the
day : " What pest so pernicious as Luther has ever attacked the
flock of Christ ? . . . What a wolf of hell is he ! What a limb
of Satan ! How rotten is his mind ! How execrable his purpose ! "

HENRY VIII 193

In point of logic the polemic is occasionally faulty. For in-
stance Luther had denied that the mass is a good work in the
sense in which the Catholic Church always considered it a mer-
itorious act on the part of all participating. Henry replies that
he who makes an image out of wood does a work ; Christ in
making his flesh out of bread does a work ; but what Christ
does is good ; therefore the mass is a good work !

Luther answered in July, 1522. In tone he is as angry as
11 that king of lies, King Heinz, by God's ungrace King of Eng-
land." Henry has acted so little like a king that he does not
think he need treat him like one : " For since with malice afore-
thought that damnable and rotten worm has lied against my
king in heaven, it is right for me to bespatter this English
monarch with his own filth and trample his blasphemous crown
under feet." As to the arguments advanced, he ridicules them,
feeling that God has smitten the papists with blindness so that
the more he cries out " the gospel and Christ " the more they
answer, "the fathers, customs, statutes." Little ability as the
work shows, it is plain that Henry did not write it, but " Lee l or
one of those snivelling, drivelling sophists bred by the Thomist
swine."

When Henry heard of the unquelled violence of his opponent
he moved every lever to. revenge his royal honor. First he wrote
to Frederic, John and George, Dukes' of Saxony, whom he evi-
dently thought of as ruling over the same territory. From the
first two he received a diplomatic but evasive answer ; George
replied more satisfactorily, but was able to do nothing.

Then the King moved a number, of theologians to attack
Luther ; the two prominent English scholars, Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, and Sir Thomas More did so, as well as Murner,
and, most important of all, Erasmus.

If these efforts, diplomatic and literary, failed to crush his
opponent, a few years later Henry had an extremely good chance
to humiliate him. In the spring of 1525 King Christian II of
Denmark, a personal friend of Luther, gave him the somewhat

1 Edward Lee, prominent as an opponent of Erasmus. The spirit of the work
was Henry's, but he probably received much help from Fisher and other learned
divines.

194 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

premature information that England was becoming favorable
to the Evangelic faith. In May, therefore, the Reformer com-
posed a letter to the King, which he sent to Spalatin for advice.
This friend wisely advised him to keep silence, but Luther
could not let slip the opportunity of winning so powerful an
adherent, especially, perhaps, as he felt his position somewhat
weakened by the Peasants' Revolt and the death of the Elector
Frederic, and therefore on September 1 he dispatched the fol-
lowing missive : —

TO HENRY VIII OF ENGLAND

Wittenberg, September 1, 1525.

Grace and peace in Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen. Indeed,
Most Serene and Illustrious King, I ought greatly to fear to address
your Majesty in a letter, as I am fully aware that your Majesty is
deeply offended at my pamphlet, which I published foolishly and pre-
cipitately, not of my own motion but at the hest of certain men who
are not your Majesty's friends. But daily seeing your royal clemency,
I take hope and courage ; I will not believe that a mortal can
cherish immortal hatred. I have learned from credible authority that
the book published over your Majesty's name was not written by your
Majesty, but by crafty men of guile who abused your name, especially
by that monster detested of God and man, that pest of your kingdom,
Cardinal Wolsey. They did not see the danger of humiliating their
king. I am ashamed to raise my eyes to your Majesty because I al-
lowed myself to be moved by this despicable work of malignant in-
triguers, especially as I am the offscouring of the world, a mere worm
who ought only to live in contemptuous neglect.

What impels me to write, abject as I am, is that your Majesty has
begun to favor the Evangelic cause and to feel disgust at the aban-
doned men who oppose us. This news was a true gospel — i.e., tidings
of great joy — to my heart. ... If your Serene Majesty wishes me
to recant publicly and write in honor of your Majesty, will you, gra-
ciously signify your wish to me and I will gladly do so. . . .
Your Majesty's most devoted,

Martin Luther, with his own hand.

This letter naturally did no good. Indeed, though Luther was
certainly sincere in his desire to conciliate, he never displayed
greater lack of tact than in dispraising the King's book and

HENRY VIII 195

favorite minister. After a long delay, Henry replied in a fiercer
work than before, printing Luther's missive with mocking
comments, and taunting him with having caused the Peasants'
Revolt and with living in wantonness with a nun.

The King sent his epistle, which reached the proportions of a
small book, to Duke George, and it was promptly published in
Germany at his instigation under the title, Luther's Offer to
Recant in a letter to the King of England. This twisting of his
apology into a recantation excited the Reformer's ire again and
he replied with a pamphlet, Against the Title of the King of
England's Libel. In this he asserts that he will not recant his
doctrine : " No, no, no, not while I live, let it irk king, prince,
emperor, devil, and whom it may." He has tried hard to keep
the peace both with Erasmus and with Henry : " but I am a
sheep and must remain a sheep to think that I can pacify such
men."

Henry- did. not continue the altercation further, but revenged
himself by stamping out the Evangelic faith in England and by
giving a play, representing " the heretic Luther like a party
friar in russet damask and black taffety, and his wife like a f row
of Almayn in red silk," St. Martin's Eve, November 9, 1527.

The rancor borne by the haughty monarch did not prevent
his seeking the aid of his enemy when the latter might become
useful to him. It is not necessary here to resume the history of
Henry's separation from Catharine of Aragon nor to probe his
strangely mingled motives. After a long but vain effort to get
from the Pope a divorce on the ground that the union with a
brother's widow was forbidden by Leviticus xx, 21, the monarch
decided to take matters into his own hands, and, in order to re-
assure both himself and his subjects, began, in 1529, to solicit
the opinions of foreign universities and " strange doctors."

As early as 1529 he threatened to appeal from the Catholics
to the Lutherans, introduced some Evangelic books into his
court, and even praised the once hated heretic to Chapuys, the
-imperial ambassador. It is possible that he applied to the re-
formers in 1530 ; it is certain that he did so in 1531. Simon
Grynaeus was the agent employed to deal with the Swiss and
with Melanchthon, but a special messenger was sent to Luther.

196 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

This man, whose name is not mentioned in the sources, applied
first to Robert Barnes, who, having been forced to flee from
England on account of his faith, in 1528, had made his way to
Wittenberg and in time became a warm friend of Luther and
a guest at his house. The agent then went to Philip of Hesse
and urged him to write the Reformer for an opinion on Henry's
divorce, a request with which the Landgrave complied.

Luther gave his answer to Barnes in a long letter dated
September 3, 1531. Emphatically denying the legitimacy of
the divorce, he writes : —

I do not now question what a papal dispensation in such matters is
worth, but I say that even if the King sinned in marrying his brother's
widow it would be a much greater sin cruelly to put her away now.
Rather let him take another queen, following the example of the
patriarchs, who had many wives even before the law of Moses sanc-
tioned the practice, but let him not thrust his present wife from her
royal position. I pray with all my heart that Christ may prevent this
divorce.

The proposal to commit bigamy, rather than to divorce, shocks
an age accustomed to regard the latter as the preferable alter-
native. The general opinion of the sixteenth century was ex-
actly opposite to that of the twentieth on this point, for the
simple reason that polygamy, practised in the Old Testament,
was never expressly forbidden by the New, which discounten-
ances divorce. Luther's good conscience in giving this advice
is shown by its disinterestedness — for by complying with the
King's wish for divorce he might have won a powerful convert —
as well as by the previous statement in the Babylonian Captivity
of the same opinion. That his views were shared by a large
number of his contemporary divines, both Protestant and Cath-
olic, has been demonstrated in a very careful study by Doctor
Rockwell.

Barnes left Wittenberg the day after this letter was written,
and hastened, via Magdeburg and Liibeck, to London, where
he was received by his royal master in December. The monarch
was naturally displeased with his message and dismissed him
"with much ill will."

Nevertheless the very next year he sent Paget to Germany to

HENRY VIII , 197

persuade the Protestant doctors to write for the divorce. The
emissary reached Wittenberg, August 12, 1532, but got no
more satisfaction than had Barnes. On this occasion Luther
says : " I advised the King that it would be better for him to
take a concubine x than to ruin his people ; nevertheless he
craftily put away his queen."

In 1533 the King made another attempt to get a favorable
opinion from the Wittenbergers, but presumably with the same
result.

Undeterred by these rebuffs he dispatched Barnes, in March,
1535, on the same errand. Hardly had the ambassador returned
before Henry heard that Francis I of France was seeking the
alliance of the Schmalkaldic League, and, to counteract this
move of his rival, he again sent Barnes posthaste with a gift
of five hundred gulden to Melanchthon and an invitation to
visit London, and with a smaller present of fifty gulden to Lu-
ther. In a letter of September 12, 1535, Luther strongly urged
his government to allow Melanchthon to accept the invitation,
and in the same letter adds : " Concerning the King's marriage
it is agreed that the other ambassador shall treat with us. . . .
I am curious to learn why they want to be so well satisfied on
this point." This curiosity will be shared by others. The per-
sistent efforts of the King remind one of Wolsey's saying that
what he once took into his head no one could ever get out.

The expected ambassador — or rather two of them — arrived
in December. They were no less personages than Edward Fox,
Bishop of Hereford, and Archdeacon Nicholas Heath. Their
special mission with Luther, apart from diplomatic business
with the Elector, was to secure a favorable opinion of the divorce.
For a time they had hopes of success, but their importunity
finally wearied Luther, and when they returned they took with
them a polite letter from the Reformer to Cromwell but an un-
favorable judgment. According to this the Wittenberg theo-
logians decided that though divine and moral law prohibit
marriage with a brother's wife, after marriage had taken place
no divorce is permissible.

1 Luther uses this word to designate a second legitimate but subordinate wife.
Cf. De Wette-Seideraann, vi, 276.

198 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Soon after the return of the embassy to England, Henry ex-
ecuted Anne (May 19, 1536) and the next day married his third
wife, Jane Seymour. He naturally did not apply to Luther any
more. The Reformer was apprised of his act by a letter from
Alesius, a Scotch Lutheran, and calls it " a monstrous tragedy."
He seems, however, to have approved of the execution of his
two old enemies, More and Fisher.

Intercourse with England was brisk during the next years,
for it was the policy of Thomas Cromwell, the English minister,
to ally himself to the Schmalkaldic League. In May, 1538, an
Englishman came to Wittenberg and gave an interesting ac-
count of the visitation of the monasteries and of the images
which were made to move by machinery. At the same time the
German Protestants sent as envoys to Britain the Vice-Chan-
cellor Burkhardt and the theologian Myeonius. With them
Luther sent a kind letter to Bishop Fox.

The alliance culminated in the marriage of Henry with
Anne of Cleves, January, 1540. In the following July, however,
she was divorced, and Cromwell paid with his life the penalty
for the failure of his policy. A violent reaction against Luther-
anism followed ; among its martyrs was Robert Barnes. The
Reformer edited his English friend's confession of faith, drawn
up just before his death, with a preface stating that he is for-
ever done with Henry and such devils. Melanchthon only
wished that God would free the world from such a monster at
the hand of an able tyrannicide. Luther, though he never went
so far as this, expressed his opinion with sufficient vigor:
" This king wants to be God ; he founds articles of faith which
even the Pope never did. ... I believe him to be an incarnate
devil."

CHAPTER XVIII

ERASMUS

Before Luther's fame had eclipsed that of all his contem-
poraries, the greatest figure in the republic of letters was
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had attained to an
acknowledged sovereignty like that later accorded to Voltaire.
He combined great learning with a wonderful mastery of style,
especially of the lighter kind, sparkling with wit. He was,
moreover, inspired with a serious purpose of reform, in the
service of which he used all his great and various talents. In
his Praise of Folly (1511) he had written a cutting satire on
the least admirable aspects of the mediaeval Church, and by his
edition of the Greek Testament (1516) he had given an im-
mense stimulus along with necessary means to a fruitful study
of the Bible. He was the deadly enemy of superstition and ob-
scurantism, and the bold champion of sound learning and free
thought. His true greatness would be proved, if by nothing
else, by the fact that two such opposite and such large men as
Martin Luther and Francois Rabelais * derived much of their
inspiration from him.

Erasmus* idea of a reformation differed from that of Luther
partly in aim but more in method. The humanist had a strong
love of peace and a sincere horror of the " tumult." He judged
that strong measures were always inexpedient, and, had he
judged otherwise, he would not, by his own confession, have
had the courage to adopt them.

The Wittenberg professor, who keenly sought the best and
most recent books on divinity, learned to know many of Eras-
mus* commentaries and used them freely, along with the new
edition of the Greek Testament, in preparing his lectures.
With his usual independence of judgment he did not acquiesce

1 L. Thuasne : Etudes sur Rabelais, Paris, 1904, pp. 27 ff. Forstemann und
Giinther : Brieftjan Erasmus, Leipsic, 1904, p. 216.

200 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

in all the conclusions of the great scholar. On October 19,
1516, he wrote Spalatin that he had detected an unsound ex-
egesis in the humanist's commentary on Romans, and begged
his friend to communicate the objection to the author. Spalatin
complied but received no answer. Luther continued to read Eras-
mus, and in the Commentary on Galatians referred with apprecia-
tion to his predecessor's work in this field. Indeed the first of the
Ninety-five Theses may have been suggested by Erasmus' trans-
lation of Mark i, 15. That the monk also read the lighter
works of the man of letters is proved by his reference in an
epistle of November, 1517, to the Dialogue between Peter and
Julius II : " It is written," said he, " so merrily, so learnedly and
so ingeniously, — that is so, Erasmianly, — that it makes one
laugh at the vices and miseries of the Church, at which every
Christian ought rather to weep." Nevertheless he at one time
had the intention of translating it into German, but gave it up,
fearing that he could not do it justice.

That the young reformer expected to find an ally in the elder
was perfectly natural. It was probably the influence of Me-
lanchthon that first induced his friend to approach the great
scholar definitely with this end. The first letter, somewhat con-
densed, is as follows : —

TO DESIDERIUS ERASMUS AT LOUVAIN

Wittenberg, March 28, 1519.

Greeting. I chat much with you and you with me, O Erasmus, our
glory and hope! ■ — but yet we are not acquainted. Is not that monstrous?
No, it is not monstrous, but a thing we see daily. For who is there whose
innermost parts Erasmus has not penetrated, whom Erasmus does not
teach and in whom he does not reign ? I mean of those who love letters,
for among the other gifts of Christ to you, this also must be mentioned,
that you displease many, by which criterion I am wont to know what
God gives in mercy from what he gives in wrath. I therefore congrat-
ulate you, that while you please good men to the last degree, you
no less displease those who wish only to be highest and to please
most. . . .

Now that I have learned from Fabritius Capito that my name is
known to you on account of my little treatise on indulgences, and as
I also learn from your preface to the new edition of your Handbook of

ERASMUS 201

the Christian Knight, that my ideas are not only known to you but
approved by you, I am compelled to acknowledge my debt to you as
the enricher of my mind, even if I should have to do so in a barbar-
ous style. . . .

And so, dear Erasmus, if it please you, learn to know this little
brother in Christ also : he is assuredly your very zealous friend, but
otherwise deserves, on account of his ignorance, only to be buried in
a corner, unknown even to your climate and sun. . . .

Erasmus, who had already praised the Theses (though he
denied the reference to them in the preface to the Handbook),
replied to this letter in a friendly way, assuring his correspondent
that he had many friends in the Netherlands and in England,
commending his Commentaries on the Psalms, but warning him
to guard against violence (May 30, 1519). About the same time
the humanist wrote to Frederic the Wise and to Melanchthon,
testifying his high esteem for the Saxon monk.

The letter of May 30, which the author had intended to be
private, was shortly printed at Leipsic. Partly to guard against
misapprehension, and partly to help the cause of reform, Eras-
mus wrote in November to Albert of Mayence, praising Luther's
character and urging that he be not condemned unheard, add-
ing : " He wrote me a right Christian letter, to my own mind,
which I answered by warning him not to write anything seditious
or irreverent to the Pope or arrogantly or in anger. ... I said
that thus could he conciliate the opinion of those who favor
him, which some have foolishly interpreted to mean that I
favor him." This letter, entrusted to the impetuous Ulrich von
Hutten, was by him forthwith published, with " Luther "
changed into " our Luther."

This indiscretion, to call it by its mildest name, was intended
to make Erasmus declare for the reform at once, but it had
rather the opposite effect. The humanist was already at swords'
points with the Dominicans, and now an enormous buzz arose
from this quarter that he of Rotterdam was in straight alliance
with him of Wittenberg and helped him to compose his
works. The theologians of Louvain, where Erasmus then lived,
published a condemnation of the heretic's doctrine ; the man
attacked struck back (1520), saying, " They have condemned

202 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

not only me, but Occam, Mirandola, Valla, Reuchlin, Wesel,
Lefevre d'Etaples, and Erasmus, that ram caught by the horns
in the bushes." The humanist wrote in March to Melanchthon,
saying that the Answer to the Condemnation of Louvain pleased
him wonderfully, but at the same time wrote to the author a
letter (now lost), probably asking him not to mention his name
any more, to which Luther replied (if we may conjecture from
other indications, for his letter, too, is lost) that he would not
do so.

Throughout the year 1520 Erasmus did his best to secure the
accused heretic a fair hearing. " They find it easier to burn his
books than to refute them," he said, and set about writing and
speaking, to Frederic the Wise, to Henry VIII of England, to
Albert of Mayence, even to the Pope and cardinals, urging them
not to proceed by force. When Aleander came to Louvain, on
October 8, 1520, published the bull and burned Luther's books,
Erasmus, who was attacked by him, replied in an anonymous
polemic, The Acts of Louvain, discrediting the legate and de-
claring his belief that the bull was forged. His interview with
the Elector of Saxony at Cologne on November 5, in which he
urged him to insist that his subject have an impartial trial, has
already been mentioned, as has his Counsel of One desiring the
Peace of the Church, a memorial at this time pressed upon the
Emperor's advisers, and the plan of arbitration composed by
Erasmus and presented by Faber at the Diet of Worms.

Although these efforts immensely helped the Reformer, they
did not accomplish all that the humanist hoped. Moreover he
began, about 1521, to be alienated by the other's violence. The
Babylonian Captivity he thought prevented the possibility of
reconciliation, and he was especially incensed by the charge that
this work, first published anonymously, was written by him.

When the news spread abroad of Luther's disappearance
after the Diet of Worms, many expected that the humanist
would take up the banner of reform. Albert Diirer, then travel-
ling in the Netherlands where he had learned to know the great
scholar, wrote in his diary : " O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where
wilt thou abide? . . . O thou knight of Christ, seize the
martyr's crown ! . . . " But this was an honor the great scholar

ERASMUS 203

did not aspire to. A few days later he wrote Pace that the
Germans were alienating him by trying to force him to declare
for Luther, but that he feared, were a tumult to arise, that he
would follow the example of Peter and deny his Lord.

Nevertheless he sought to remain neutral, although by so do-
ing he brought on himself the suspicion of favoring the heretic.
In numerous letters to his patrons and friends he excused him-
self from this charge. Some of these letters were published, and
so Luther was kept posted on his quondam ally's change of atti-
tude. In June, 1523, he wrote to CEcolampadius : —

I note the pricks that Erasmus gives me now and then, but as he
does it without openly declaring himself my foe, I act as though I
were unaware of his sly attacks, although I understand him better
than he thinks. He has done what he was called to do ; he has brought
us from godless studies to a knowledge of the tongues ; perhaps he will
die in the land of Moab, for to enter the promised land he is unable.

That Erasmus finally came out as the opponent of the
man he had once supported was due not only to the urging of
his friends and patrons but also to the provocation given by
the reformers. In the letter to CEcolampadius, Luther spoke
slightingly of the humanist's theology, and this letter was
shown Erasmus, who had, since 1521, removed from Louvain
to Basel.

The fiery Hutten, who could bear no indecision, precip-
itated hostilities by publishing in June, 1523, an Expostulation
with Erasmus, roundly rating him for duplicity and cowardice.
Erasmus defended himself in the Sponge (August), in which
he incidentally blames Luther for disturbing the peace, for
scurrility, and especially for his recent unmeasured attack on
Henry VIII. In a dedicatory letter to Zwingli he mentions as
the chief errors of the Wittenberg professor : (1) Designation of
all good works as mortal sin ; (2) denial of free will ; (3) justi-
fication by faith alone. Erasmus may have taken the idea from
the letter of Henry VIII to Duke George (January 20, 1523),
which mentioned these as the fundamental errors of the heretic.
This letter with the Duke's answer was printed, and Erasmus
read them both.

204 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

The reasons for Erasmus' choice of this subject, the freedom
of the will, on which to attack Luther, have been much dis-
cussed. It has often been said that he chose the subject with
the least practical interest, hoping* in the first place not to put
an obstacle in the way of reforms of which he really approved,
and secondly not to antagonize the Reformer whose person he
spared while criticising his doctrine. This motive probably had
its weight with the humanist, but not the decisive weight. The
matter was " in the air." Lorenzo Valla, always admired by
Erasmus, had written a work on the freedom of the will in
1440, which had recently been edited by Vadian, 1518. The
English Bishop Fisher had chosen this subject in his attack on
Luther, the Refutation of Luther's Assertion, being a rebuttal
of the Assertion of All the Articles Wrongly Condemned by
the Last Bull of Leo X, in which, as we have seen (cf . supra,
p. 101), Luther argues at length, in the thirty-sixth article, for
his opinion that free will is but a name. The Reformer himself
had selected this as the foundation of all his theology, being,
in fact, no more than another form of the famous doctrine of
justification by faith alone. His position was emphasized and
clarified in Melanchthon's Common Places of Theology, ap-
pearing December, 1521.

The Diatribe on the Free Will was first mentioned by its
author in a letter to Henry VIII of September 4, 1523, and it
is possible that a first draft of it followed in this year. Finding
that the printers at Basel were unwilling to publish anything
against the popular hero of Germany, Erasmus had some
thoughts of going to Rome to publish it.

The news of the impending attack soon spread. Luther him-
self, judging that the best way to prevent it was to threaten
reprisals, wrote the following letter : —

TO DESIDERIUS ERASMUS AT BASEL

Wittenberg (about April 15), 1524.

Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ. I have been silent

long enough, excellent Erasmus, having waited for you, as the greater

and elder man, to speak first ; but as you refuse to do so> I think that

charity itself now compels me to begin. I say nothing about your

ERASMUS 205

estrangement from us, by which you were made safer against my
enemies the papists. Nor do I especially resent your action, intended
to gain their favor or mitigate their hostility, in censuring and attack-
ing us in various books. For since we see that the Lord has not given
you courage or sense to assail those monsters openly and confidently
with us, we are not the men to exact what is beyond your power and
measure. Rather we have tolerated and even respected the mediocrity
of God's gift in you. The whole world knows your services to letters
and how you have made them flourish and thus prepared a path for
the direct study of the Bible. For this glorious and splendid gift in
you we ought to thank God. I for one have never wished you to leave
your little sphere to join our camp, for although you might have pro-
fited the cause much by your ability, genius, and eloquence, yet as you
had not the courage it was safer for you to work at home. We only
fear that you might be induced by our enemies to fall upon our doc-
trine with some publication, in which case we should be obliged to
resist you to your face. We have restrained some who would have
drawn you into the arena, and have even suppressed books already
written against you. We should have preferred that Hutten's Expos-
tulation had not been written, and still more that your Sponge had
not seen the light. Incidentally I may remark, that, unless I mistake,
when you wrote that book you felt how easy it is to write about mod-
eration and blame Luther's excesses, but how hard or rather impos-
sible it is to practise what you preach except by a special gift of the
Spirit. Believe it or not as you like, but Christ is witness that I
heartily regret that such zeal and hatred should be roused against
you. I cannot believe that you remain unmoved by it, for your forti-
tude is human and unequal to such trials. Perhaps a righteous zeal
moved them and they thought that you had provoked them in various
ways. Since they are admittedly too weak to bear your caustic but
dissembled sarcasm (which you would have pass for prudent modera-
tion), they surely have a just cause for indignation, whereas if they
were stronger they would have none. I, too, am irritable, and quite
frequently am moved to write caustically, though I have only done
so against hardened men proof against milder forms of admonition.
Otherwise I think my gentleness and clemency toward sinners, no
matter how far they are gone in iniquity, is witnessed not only by my
own conscience but by the experience of many. Hitherto, accordingly,
I have controlled my pen as often as you prick me, and have written
in letters to friends which you have seen that I would control it until
you publish something openly. For although you will not side with

206 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

us and although you injure or make sceptical many pious persons by
your impiety and hypocrisy, yet I cannot and do not accuse you of
wilful obstinacy. What can I do ? Each side is greatly exasperated.
Could my good offices prevail, I would wish my friends to cease
attacking you with so much animus and to allow your old age a peace-
ful death in the Lord. I think they would do so if they were reasonable
and considered your weakness and the greatness of the cause which
has long since outgrown your littleness, especially as the cause has now
progressed so far that it has little to fear from the might — or rather
the sting and bite — of Erasmus. You on your side, Erasmus, ought
to consider their infirmity and abstain from making them the butt of
your witty rhetoric. Even if you cannot and dare not declare for us,
yet at least you might leave us alone and mind your own business. If
they suffer from your bites, you certainly will confess that human
weakness has cause to fear the name and fame of Erasmus and that
it is a very much graver matter to be snapped at by you than to be
ground to pieces by all the papists together. I say this, excellent Eras-
mus, as an evidence of my candid moderation, wishing that the Lord
might give you a spirit worthy of your reputation, but if he delays
doing so I beg -that meanwhile if you can do nothing else you will re-
main a spectator of the conflict and not join our enemies, and especially
that you publish no book against me, as I shall write none against you.
Remember that the men who are called Lutherans are human beings
like ourselves, whom you ought to spare and forgive as Paul says :
" Bear ye one another's burdens." We have fought long enough, we
must take care not to eat each other up. This would be a terrible
catastrophe, as neither one of us really wishes harm to religion, and
without judging each other both may do good. Pardon my poor style
and farewell in the Lord. . . .

Martin Luther.

Erasmus* answer, dated May 8, asserts that he is not less
zealous for the cause of religion than others who arrogate to
themselves the name " evangelic," and that he has as yet writ-
ten nothing against Luther, though had he done so he would
have won the applause of the great ones of the world.

Very soon after this he finished the Diatribe on the Free
Will. On account of its pure Latinity, its moderation, wit, and
brevity, this work is still very readable. It is also distinguished
by the absence of scurrility ; indeed it hardly makes the impres-

ERASMUS 207

sion of a polemic at all, but rather of a conversation on the in-
tellectual movement of the times, addressed to a wide audience.

The author expresses his perfect readiness to appeal only to
reason and to Scripture, as these are the only grounds recognized
by Luther. He defines free will as the power to apply one's self
to the things leading to salvation, and appeals to the universal
opinion of mankind that each one has such a power. His strong-
est argument is that it would be unjust for God to damn a
man for doing what he could not help. He devotes long sections
to explanations of Scriptural passages, such as "God hardened
Pharaoh's heart," which would seem to militate against free
will, and he refutes point by point Luther's arguments in the
Assertion of All the Articles Condemned by the Bull — a part
of the work in which he borrows much without acknowledgment
from Bishop Fisher. Finally he sums up : " Those please me
who attribute something to free will but much to grace." Both
must cooperate to save a man, one may assign as small a part
as one likes to the former factor, only it must be some part.

The Diatribe was published in September, 1524, and promptly
sent to the author's patrons and friends, most of whom it had
the good fortune to please. Even Melanchthon liked the moder-
ation of tone and the reasonableness of the argument. Luther
himself confessed that of all his opponents Erasmus only had
gone to the root of the matter and instead of threatening him
with ban and stake had undertaken to refute him by reasons.
He once said that of all the books written against him, the Dia-
tribe was the only one he read through, but even this made him
feel like throwing it under the bench and heartily disgusted
him. He did not answer it for more than a year, a delay partly
accounted for by his preoccupations with the " heavenly pro-
phets," the Peasants' War, and his marriage, and partly by the
unusual care with which he prepared his reply. His book on
the Unf ree Will (De servo arbitrio) at last appeared in Decem-
ber, 1525.

This bulky volume has been acclaimed by most Protestant
biographers of Luther as his ablest polemic and a work of ex-
traordinary power. It is needless to remark that much of this
ability is wasted on a generation for which the question, then

208 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

so passionately disputed, has sunk almost into oblivion. In
point of earnestness he is a striking contrast to Erasmus. What
for the latter is the subject of an interesting discussion is to
him matter of life and death. It is in this sense that he attrib-
utes eloquence and mastery of speech to his opponent, but to
himself substance and real understanding of the issue.

Luther takes his former stand for extreme predestinarianism.
His determinism is not founded, as that of a modern philoso-
pher might be, on any conception of the immutability of natural
law, but is simply and solely the logical deduction from his
doctrine of justification by faith alone, or, as it is technically
called, of the monergism of grace. Man is a simple instrument
in God's hands, and the Almighty arbitrarily saves whom he
wills and damns whom he wills. The extreme form in which
Luther put this doctrine, which is certainly revolting to our
ideas, can only be realized by a few quotations of his own
words : —

The human will is like a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes
and goes as God wills ; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan
wills. Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, nor betake itself to
him, but it is the riders who contend for its possession. . . .

This is the acme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and
condemns so many is merciful ; that he is just who at his own pleasure
has made us necessarily doomed to damnation, so that, as Erasmus
says, he seems to delight in the tortures of the wretched, and to be more
deserving of hatred than of love. If by any effort of reason I could
conceive how God, who shows so much anger and iniquity, could be
merciful and just, there would be no need of faith. . . .

God foreknows nothing subject to contingencies, but he foresees,
foreordains, and accomplishes all things by an unchanging, eternal,
and efficacious will. By this thunderbolt free will sinks shattered in
the dust.

Besides defending his main thesis Luther here puts forward
his doctrine of infallibility of the Scripture. He is enraged at the
assertion of his opponent that there seem to be contradictions
in the Bible. According to Luther every text must be taken
literally, and yet all must be made to agree, for as the whole
is plenarily inspired by divine wisdom there can be no diversity

ERASMUS , 209

of doctrine. Moreover he apologizes for his whole theology, espe-
cially replying to the charge that tumult followed it by assert-
ing that uproar always follows the preaching of God's Word.

He sent a copy of the work, with a letter asserting his con-
viction of its truth, to his opponent, but the messenger was
delayed and Erasmus did not receive it until April. In the
mean time a friend in Leipsic (Duke George ?) had sent him
a copy, which he received on February 10. He commenced his
reply at once, spending only twelve days in answering it* so as
to have the reply ready to be sold at the Frankfort Fair. He
was astonished by the violence of Luther's invective of which
he complained to the Elector of Saxony. To Luther himself he
wrote as follows : —

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS TO MARTIN LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

Basel, April 11, 1526.
Your letter was delivered to me too late and had it come in time it
would not have moved me. . . . The whole world knows your nature,
according to which you have guided your pen against no one more
bitterly and, what is more detestable, more maliciously than against me.
. . . The same admirable ferocity which you formerly used against
Fisher and against Cochlaeus, who provoked it by reviling you, you
now use against my book in spite of its courtesy. How do your scur-
rilous charges that I am an atheist, an Epicurean, and a sceptic, help
the argument ? ... It terribly pains me, as it must all good men, that
your arrogant, insolent, rebellious nature has set the world in arms. . . .
You treat the Evangelic cause so as to confound together all things
sacred and profane, as if it were your chief aim to prevent the tempest
from ever becoming calm, while it is my greatest desire that it should
die down. . . .

The Hyperaspistes, Part I, is a work three times as large as
the Diatribe, of which it is a defence, and is moreover a general
attack on all points of Luther's doctrine. In it the question of
free will recedes behind the other question of the excellence of
the Lutheran movement. Erasmus cannot convince himself that
the Reformer is really inspired with the spirit of the gospel, as
he has not learned to avoid giving offence. He attacks Luther's
person and the results of his doctrine, among which are included

210 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

the Peasants' War. As the book is written in such haste, he
promises a continuation of it later with fuller consideration of
the main argument.

After his first heat had cooled down, Erasmus put off this
promised work for eighteen months. That he wrote it at all
was again the work of Henry VIII. This monarch's answer to
Luther, published in the early part of 1527, contains some refer-
ences to free will which made the Reformer suspect Erasmus'
hand in its composition. This charge, coupled with the violence
of the Wittenberg reformer, which alienated many persons be-
sides Erasmus, induced him to reply. This he did in a book
six times the size of the Diatribe, which appeared about Sep-
tember 1, 1527, and was called Hyperaspistes, Part II.

Now at last the fundamental difference between Erasmus
and Luther is revealed, the opposite trend of the two natures.
The humanist reacts against Luther's absolutism; he cannot
abide hard-and-fast rules admitting no exception. Of himself
he said, " I am prone to those things like nature ; I abhor por-
tents " ; of his antagonist, " He never recoils from extremes."
For the dogmatic reformer there is one absolute right and one
absolute wrong ; for the classic scholar men and things cannot be
divided into such uncompromising categories ; there are shades
and degrees. Luther is a logician ; from premises impeccable,
because directly revealed in the Bible, he draws conclusions of
mathematical precision ; Erasmus is an evolutionist and a
rationalist, to whom all truth does not come through the Bible,
but much from reason. He believes, moreover, that men have
a natural trend to the good. At the close of this comprehensive
work he tries to hedge and make peace again. After all, the
strife is mainly one of words, and man should remember that
salvation is God's work, but damnation that of sin. Just as
the Hyperaspistes, Part II, appeared, its author wrote Duke
George that Luther's spirit was neither a wholly good nor an
entirely bad one.

The work was received by the Evangelic party as might
have been expected. Justus Jonas, a quondam Erasmian, now
at Wittenberg, referred to his former beloved master as a toad.
Melanchthon, indeed, who resembled Erasmus in many ways,

ERASMUS 211

was half -convinced that determinism would be bad for the
morals of the common man, for who would try to be good if
he was convinced it was no use ? Luther himself punned on
the double meaning of aspis, which in Greek means both shield
and viper (Hyperaspistes, a soldier), calling the work " super-
viperean." He never deigned to answer it for reasons explained
to Montanus in a letter of May 28, 1529 : —

Erasmus writes nothing in which he does not show the impotence
of his mind or rather the pain of the wounds he has received. I de-
spise him, nor shall I honor the fellow by arguing with him any more.
... In future I shall only refer to him as some alien, rather con-
demning than refuting his ideas. He is a light-minded man, mocking
all religion as his dear Lucian does, and serious about nothing but
calumny and slander.

But the last word was not yet said. In 1533 George Witzel,
a liberal Catholic and an admirer of Erasmus, begged " that
Solon" to draw up a plan for pacifying the Church. The old
scholar, who, in the mean time, had been forced to withdraw
from Basel, now too Protestant for him, to Freiburg, flattered
by the request, published a reasonable and irenic pamphlet,
On Mending the Peace of the Church, advising that each
side tolerate the other in non-essential matters, that all contro-
versial writings be forbidden, and that a general council take
measures with the civil authorities for restoring unity and
healing the schism.

The anger of the reformers was roused afresh by this appar-
ently inoffensive essay towards compromise. Corvinus an-
swered it in full, Luther writing a preface for his work, proving
that there could be no peace between Christ and Belial. At the
same time he expressed himself more fully in a long printed
letter to Amsdorf, written about March 11, 1534, calling
Erasmus by the somewhat contradictory names of heretic,
atheist, blasphemer, and Arian, and, worst of all, one who
makes jokes of serious things and serious business of jokes.

Erasmus answered with A Justification against the Intem-
perate Letter of Luther, denying all the accusations point by
point. Two years later he died, in the opinion of his adversary
" without light, without the cross, and without God."

212 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

The table-talk (1531-46) is full of the most rancorous ex-
pressions about the great scholar : —

In writing his Folly, Erasmus begot a daughter worthy of himself.
He turns, twists, and bites like an awl, but yet shows himself a true
fool.

On my death-bed I shall forbid my sons to read his Colloquies. . . .
He is much worse than Lucian, mocking all things under the guise of
holiness.

He goes so far as to compare our Lord to the god Priapus. . . .

In his New Testament he is ambiguous and cavilling . . . trying to
perplex the reader and make him think the doctrine doubtful. He
reviles all Christians, making no exception of Paul or any pious man.

The battle between Luther and Erasmus was a real tragedy.
The humanist had set himself, as his life task, a peaceful re-
formation of the Church ; abuses, he thought, would fade away
before gentle sarcasm and the cultivation of good letters and
the sacred texts. The boisterous attack of the Wittenberg
monk, said he sadly, destroyed all hope of this. He lived to see
his ideal of peace shattered in war, the followers trained to
carry on his work reft from him by one side or the other, and
his own name spat upon by almost all.

For Luther the loss was hardly less. He saw the man in
whom he confidently expected the most valuable of all allies
gradually draw back from his side and become not only a
neutral but an enemy, to the great scandal of his own followers
and to the hurt of the Evangelic Church. In his anger and dis-
appointment he more and more expressed himself in unmeas-
ured terms, and more and more forgot the good in Erasmus
and the services he had done the world. But those who regret
his one-sidedness and especially his violence should not blame
him too hastily. Every great leader of a new and struggling
movement must feel that he who is not with him is against him
and that he who gathereth not scattereth. The citizen who re-
fuses to take arms in wartime is a public enemy. His scruples
may be honorable, but one can hardly blame the general for
expelling him from the ranks. In the American civil war no
character was so much detested as the " Copperhead," the
Northern man who refused to fight for the Union.

ERASMUS 213

The Reformation is still a living issue. A reflecting mind
must have an opinion on its merits. Some judge it as a great
step forward, others as a blow to human progress. A few are
still Erasmians, approving the principle of the Reformation,
they think it might have been accomplished without rending
the peace of the world. But the mass of mankind are not led in
that way. To reform any institution it is not sufficient to secure
the intellectual adherence of a few choice spirits, the whole soul
of a people must be aroused. One may estimate the Reforma-
tion as one pleases, but to think of it without Luther is as un-
historical as to fancy that Christianity might have grown up
without its great Founder, or that Islam could have been born
in the deserts of Arabia without the Prophet.

CHAPTER XIX

GERMAN POLITICS. 1522-1529

When Martin Luther returned from the Wartburg in March,
1522, he found the state of affairs very different, not only at
Wittenberg, but in the whole of Germany, from that which he
had left a year before. He was no longer a lone man fighting
single-handed against the official representatives of the universal
Church ; he was now at the head of a movement which grad-
ually swept into its vortex the greater part not only of his
countrymen but of all civilized Europe north of the Alps and
the Pyrenees. By far the greater part of this revolution lies
entirely beyond the ken of a biographer of Luther. He cared
little or nothing for politics in themselves, partly because of his
direct reliance on God, partly because he felt himself ill quali-
fied to advise on such matters. Nevertheless in some phases of
public affairs he was forced by his position to interfere.

Leo X died in December, 1521. His successor, Adrian VI,
a pious man and a sincere Catholic, fought both the corruption
within the Church and the schism without. His particularly
close relations with the Emperor, to whom he had once been
tutor, foreboded danger to the new cause, though as a matter of
fact his short pontificate enabled him to do little. To the Diet
called at Nuremberg in 1522 he sent an injunction to stamp out
heresy in the Empire. Before this body also came the com-
plaints of Duke George of Albertine Saxony against the fanat-
ical programme of the prophets at Wittenberg. In defence of
his subject, Frederic the Wise, now as always his best sup-
porter, submitted the letter drawn up by Luther immediately
after his return.1 This, together with the restoration of order at
Wittenberg, impressed the members of the Diet so favorably
that they declined to take any decisive action against the out-
lawed heretic.

1 Cf . supra, p. 146.

GERMAN POLITICS 215

Nevertheless his position and that of his protector was very
delicate. The Imperial Edict of Worms was still in force. Fred-
eric had on this account been much opposed to his coming out
of hiding, fearing that the electorate would become embroiled
with the central government. In the letter of March 5, 1522,1
Luther had answered his lord's question as to how far he, Fred-
eric, was bound to obey the higher power in case it demanded
the execution of the edict, by saying that it would be sufficient
to allow the imperial officers a free hand, but that resistance to
them would be rebellion and therefore forbidden by God. This
disinterested advice was partly determined by the riots at Wit-
tenberg ; while the Reformer was preaching earnestly against
these disturbers of the peace, he could hardly request his sover-
eign to defend him against the Emperor by arms. The letter
gives the key-note to Luther's attitude toward the government
for the next ten years ; he consistently maintained that opposi-
tion to it should be confined to neglecting to execute its decrees,
but that all armed resistance must be discountenanced as tanta-
mount to treason. These principles were thoroughly worked out
in a thoughtful little pamphlet, published in March, 1523, en-
titled : Of Civil Authority and how far Obedience is due
to it.

Formerly, he begins, I wrote a book to the German Nobility, to
point out their office and Christian work. Every one sees how well
they have done their duty. But now I must carefully advise them what
to leave undone, hoping that these men, who have hitherto striven to
be Christians before they were princes, will now let themselves be
guided by me. God Almighty has made our princes foolish, so that
they think that they can command their subjects whatever they please,
and the subjects likewise think they are bound to obey every command.
. . . Indeed the civil authorities presume to sit in God's seat, master-
ing consciences and faith, and they try to teach the Holy Ghost. . . .
Now since the fools rage to extirpate Christ's faith, to deny his Word,
and to blaspheme his Majesty, I neither will nor can any longer
acquiesce in their doings.

Nevertheless, he continues, we must not err on account of
the spiritual tyranny of the lords. The powers that be are

1 Supra, p. 144.

216 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ordained of God and have been given a divine right from the
beginning.

The world is divided into two parts, the Kingdom of God and
that of the world ; it is against the latter that the temporal
power must bear the sword, but of the former that Christ spoke
when he bade us turn the other cheek. In a somewhat labored
argument Luther even proves that bearing the sword is an office
of love, because it enables one to protect his neighbor from
wrong.

In the second part of his treatise, the author considers the
limitations of the secular power. The civil magistrate is not en-
titled to punish heretics or to force the faith of any one. Lords
are no judges of such matters, " for since the foundation of the
world a wise prince has been a rare bird and a just one much
rarer. They are generally the biggest fools and worst knaves on
earth, wherefore one must always expect the worst of them and
not much good, especially in divine matters which concern the
soul. They are only God's gaolers and hangmen." This harsh
judgment of hereditary magistrates is the more surprising in a
work dedicated to Duke John, the Elector's brother. In no case,
the writer emphatically sums up, may the temporal power de-
cide spiritual things nor even guard against plain false doctrine.

In conclusion he points out the duties of a Christian prince,
of which the first and foremost fs to attend to the weal of his
subjects.

In summing up Luther's " political theory," Professor Dun-
ning says that two doctrines can be deduced from his various
writings on the subject : " first, the absolute distinction in kind
between spiritual and secular interests and authority, and sec-
ond, the Christian duty of passive submission to the established
social and political order."

Both these doctrines were later modified by the course of
events. When the political situation seemed to make it necessary
for the Protestants to fight for their faith, the Reformer under
a rather casuistical plea gave his consent to this course, which,
however, was happily avoided. In a meeting of the jurists and
theologians to discuss this point at Torgau in 1531, Luther let
himself be convinced that resistance would in some cases be

GERMAN POLITICS 217

legal, justifying himself in a letter (dated February 15, 1531)
to Lazarus Spengler who accused him of " recanting his former
opinion that resistance to the Emperor was wrong."

I am not conscious of any inconsistency (he writes) . . . The jurists
first alleged the maxim that force might be repelled with force, which
did not satisfy me ; then they pointed out that it was a positive im-
perial law that " in cases of notorious injustice the government might
be resisted by force," to which I merely replied that I did not know
whether this was the law or not, but that if the Emperor had thus
limited himself we might let him remain so . . . and, as the law com-
mands, resist him by force.

The proposition that one might resist the Emperor only when
and because he himself commanded it, is not really quite so ab-
surd as it seems when thus baldly stated. The sixteenth century
had no word for the idea " constitution," so familiar to us. Had
Luther written four hundred years later, he would have said that
the imperial laws might be resisted when they were unconstitu-
tional, for it must be remembered that the Holy Roman Empire
had a constitution, mostly unwritten, like that of England, but
consisting partly of ancient charters like the Golden Bull.

On his first doctrine, that in no case the civil power has the
right to interfere in matters of faith, the Reformer was also
forced to weaken. The fanatical innovations of Miinzer and the
prophets, with their sequel in the Peasants' War, taught him
the danger of allowing men to teach what they pleased under
the guise of religion. Moreover, when, in 1525, an avowed Lu-
theran ascended the electoral throne, willing to support the till
then struggling religion with powerful laws, the Reformer's ideas
of the proper sphere of government considerably widened, so
that he became almost, though not quite, an Erastian. Not that
he ever allowed the right of the magistrate to compel faith, but
he insisted on the duty of the government to enforce uniformity
in religious externals. Thus, on November 11, 1525, he wrote
Spalatin : " Our government does not force belief in the Evan-
gelic faith, but only suppresses external abominations [such as
masses and all forms of public worship save the Lutheran]. . . .
For even our opponents confess that the government should put
down crimes like blasphemy."

218 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

In the same tenor he wrote Joseph Levin Metsch, August 26,
1529: —

No one is to be compelled to profess the faith, but no one must be
allowed to injure it. Let our opponents give their objections and hear
our answers. If they are thus converted, well and good ; if not let them
hold their tongues and believe what they please. ... In order to
avoid trouble we should not, if possible, suffer contrary teachings in
the same state. Even unbelievers should be forced to obey the Ten
Commandments, attend church, and outwardly conform.

It is easily seen that all real freedom of conscience vanishes
when the distinction between the suppression of heresy and the
enforcement of conformity by the civil power is drawn so fine.
If Luther's tolerance was far short of modern standards, in one
respect he was greatly superior to his contemporaries, all of
whom, Catholic princes, Henry VIII, Zwingli and Calvin, put
dissenters to death. The man of Wittenberg, in this as in other
things, following Augustine, who punished heretics with banish-
ment, consistently refused to do this, for reasons presented in
a letter to Wenzel Link, written July 14, 1528 : —

You ask whether the government may put false prophets to death.
I hesitate to give capital punishment even when it is evidently deserved,
so much am I terrified to think what happened when the papists and
the Jews punished with death, . . . for in the course of time it has
always come to pass that none but the most holy and innocent prophets
were slain. . . . Wherefore it is sufficient to banish false teachers.

Returning from this digression on Luther's political theories
to the course of history in the years following the Diet of
Worms, we find that the Reformer's confidence, fostered by his
continued immunity from persecution, that all would work
together for good without the interference of man was not
shared by his sovereign. On October 12, 1523, the professor
wrote Spalatin : —

Now, almost two years since my return from the Wartburg you see
that, contrary to the expectation of all, the Elector is not only safe
but feels the rage of the other princes much less than he did a year
ago. ... If I knew any way of keeping him safe without discredit-
ing the gospel, I would act accordingly even at the expense of my

GERMAN POLITICS 219

life. ... I wish he possessed more equanimity, and power to dis-
simulate for a while. His way of acting does not please me, for it
savors of I know not what unbelief and courtly infirmity of soul,
preferring temporal to spiritual things.

This criticism of the Elector's policy was hardly justified by
events. While he was procrastinating and gaining time the Evan-
gelic faith won many powerful converts throughout the Empire.
The cause was threatened for a moment by the rebellion and
fall of the party of the knights under Sickingen, which claimed
alliance with Wittenberg. True to his principles of obedience,
the Reformer gave no countenance to the movement, designated
by Melanchthon as brigandage, and when it was crushed in May,
1523, largely by the energy of the Evangelic Philip of Hesse,
the recoil was not felt by the growing Church. Among the
many gains made during these years the most important was
that of Prussia, till 1523 a fief of the religious order of Teu-
tonic Knights, whose grand master, Albert of Brandenburg,
adopting the new faith, turned it into a temporal realm.

On September 14 of this same eventful year Adrian VI
died. In his place was elected a Medici, Clement VII, whose
main object was to restore the elegant humanism and corrupt
privileges of the Curia enjoyed by the courtiers of his kinsman,
Leo ' X. He wished, however, ■ to stamp out the dangerous
schism, and therefore sent to the Diet, summoned at Nurem-
berg January, 1524, Campeggio, an able legate, with strong
representations urging the execution of the Edict of Worms.
This appeal met with no success ; the nuncio was obliged to
speak very moderately to get a hearing at all, while thousands
of persons, among them many members of the Diet, and even
a sister of the Emperor, flouted the Pope and Campeggio by
taking communion in both kinds from the hand of the Lu-
theran pastor, Osiander. All that could be wrung from the
Estates was a resolution to enforce the edict as far as they were
able, a nullifying qualification. In return they demanded an
immediate catling of a free council of the Church to meet at
Spires to compose the religious differences.

The year 1525 was the hardest through which the young
movement had to go. The Peasants' War alienated many of

220 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER!

the nobles from the fermenting doctrine, and the Reform-
er's harshness to the poor rebels shook his popularity with
the people. In the very midst of the tumult, on May 5, the
Elector Frederic died. He was buried in his favorite church
at Wittenberg by the famous subject with whom he had never
spoken and whom he rarely saw. On May 23, Luther writes
to Riihel : —

My gracious lord departed this life in the enjoyment of his full
reason, taking the sacrament in both kinds and without supreme
unction. We buried him without masses or vigils, but yet in a fine
noble manner. Several stones were found in his lungs and three (won-
derful to relate) in his gall, in fact he died of the stone. .- . . The
(signs of his death were a rainbow which Melanchthon and I saw one
night last winter over Lochau, and a child born here at Wittenberg
without a head, and another with feet turned around.

Though Frederic's talents were not of the dazzling order, he
had certainly shown consummate ability in protecting the Wit-
tenberg monk during the crucial early years. Though he was too
prudent to flaunt his advanced views in the face of the world,
there can be no doubt that at heart he was a convinced dis-
ciple of the new teaching. His subject recognized and often
spoke highly of his first patron : —

When the genius of a financier, a statesman, and a hero concur in
the same prince, it is a gift of God. Such an one was Frederic.

He was, indeed, very wise. He took care of the administration him-
self and did not leave everything to a pack of fools, for he said :
" While I am alive I will be ruler."

He was succeeded by his brother John the Steadfast, a less
able but more open devotee of the Evangelic faith. With his
accession the Lutheran Church became the dominant one.
Spalatin, on the death of his master, retired from the chap-
laincy of the court and was appointed to the pastorate of the
first church at the capital, Altenburg. He remained the con-
fidant and adviser of the new elector, and did invaluable service
to the cause by representing the Reformer's ideas at court.
There still existed a strong Catholic opposition, composed
mostly of nobles who feared the new doctrines, that they re-

GERMAN POLITICS 221

garded as subversive. Indeed Luther feared to come to his
friend Spalatin's wedding at Altenburg on account "of the
ignoble crowd of nobles raging against me." He even said that
he felt safer under the old elector who did not openly profess
the gospel than under the new one who did.

The first Diet after John's accession, that of Augsburg, 1525,
proved small and abortive, but that which met at Spires in
June, 1526, was described by Spalatin as the boldest and freest
ever held. Many innovations were suggested by the liberal
majority, which Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother and lieuten-
ant, vainly tried to obstruct. The Estates passed a decree
(known as the Recess of Spires), providing that in matters of
faith each state should act as it could answer to God and the
Emperor. This was in effect a declaration of entire religious
liberty, not indeed for each individual, but for each state of
the Empire.

The division of Saxony between the Ernestine and Albertine
branches of the house of Wettin has already been described.
As the strongest support for the Lutherans came from the
former, so the most determined opposition to them came from
the latter during the lifetime of Duke George the Bearded.
This prince had heard the Leipsic debate in 1519, and had been
shocked by the Wittenberger's open avowal of a position rer
garded as heretical ; for the next twenty years, until his death
in 1539, he was the ablest and most active of the Reformer's
opponents. Though both a moral and a sincere man, not bigoted
according to the standards of the age, Luther regarded him,
on account of his refusal to accept the " gospel," as the very
instrument of Satan. The prince greatly provoked him in 1522
by sending a complaint to the Imperial Council, and by exclud-
ing the German New Testament from his lands. In March of
this year the Reformer wrote a good friend, Hartmuth von
Kronberg, alluding to " the straw and paper tyranny " of cer-
tain persons otherwise designated as " bladders." Hartmuth
promptly published the letter, filling in the blank with the
name of the duke. To a polite inquiry from George about the
authorship of the obnoxious pamphlet, the writer thought fit to
return the following insulting response : —

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY AT DRESDEN

Wittenberg, January 3, 1523.
Instead of greeting I wish you would stop raging and roaring
against God and against his Christ. Ungracious Prince and Lord !
I received your Disgrace's letter with the pamphlet or letter I wrote
Hartmuth von Kronberg, and have had read to me with especial
care the part of which your Disgrace complains as injurious to your
soul, honor, and reputation. The epistle has been printed at "Witten-
berg and elsewhere. As your Disgrace desires to know what position
I take in it, I briefly answer that as far as your Disgrace is concerned,
it is the same to me whether my position is standing, lying down,
sitting or running. For when I act or speak against your Disgrace, be
it secretly or openly, I intend it as right, and (God willing) will have
it taken so. God will find the needful power. For if your Disgrace
were in earnest, and did not so ignobly lie about my coming too near
your soul, honor, and reputation, you would not so shamefully hurt
and persecute Christian truth. This is not the first time that I am
belied and evilly entreated by your Disgrace, so that I have more
cause than you to complain of injuries to soul, honor, and reputation.
But I pass over all that, for Christ commands me to do good even to
my enemies, which I have hitherto done with my poor prayers to
God for your Disgrace. I offer to serve your Disgrace in anything I
can, save in what is wrong. If you despise my offer I can do no more,
and shall not tremble for a mere bladder, God willing. May he lighten
your Disgrace's eyes and heart and please to make me a gracious,
kind prince of you. Amen.

Martin Luther,

by the grace of God Evangelist at Wittenberg.

Duke George, naturally still more antagonized by such a let-
ter, endeavored by making strong diplomatic representations to
his cousins to force the author to apologize. For a long time
Luther steadily refused to do this, but about three years later
he thought that the time was propitious for a reconciliation,
and accordingly wrote his old enemy with that view. What
decided him to do so is not clear ; perhaps a sense of his weak-
ened position at this time made him more conciliatory: —

GERMAN POLITICS 223

TO DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY AT DRESDEN

(Wittenberg,) December 21, 1525.

... As I observe that your Grace does not turn from your dis-
favor, I am minded once more to approach your Grace, perhaps for
the last time, with this humble, affectionate letter. It looks to me as
if God would soon take one of us away, and so makes it desirable
that Duke George and Luther should speedily become friends. . . .

I fall at your Grace's feet and beg you in utter humility to leave
off persecuting my doctrine. Not that much harm can come to me
through your Grace's persecution, for I have little to lose but my poor
body. . . . Truly I have a greater enemy than you, namely, the devil
and his angels. . . . Persecution has greatly helped me and I thank
my enemies for it. If your Grace's misfortunes were pleasant to me,
which they are not, I would irritate you still more and provoke you
to persecute me more. ... Of my doctrine I can only say that it
speaks for itself and does not need my exhortation to recommend it.
. . . Let not your Grace despise my humble person, for God once
spoke through an ass. . . .

Except by preaching my doctrine I beg to know how I have inad-
vertently hurt your Grace. I forgive from my heart what your Grace
has done to hurt me, and I will pray the Lord to forgive you what you
have done against his Word. . . . Let me inform your Grace that I
have always hitherto prayed for your Grace, and now write this letter
in hopes of avoiding the necessity of praying against your Grace, for
although we are a poor little flock, yet should we pray against you
... we know that nothing good would happen to you. . . . Your
Grace might then learn that it is a different thing to fight against
Luther from fighting against Munzer. . . .

Your Grace's humble, devoted servant,

Martin Luther.

This missive reached its destination on Christmas and was
answered on December 28 "for a New Year's gift." The Duke
recalls the Kronberg episode, with the letter of 1523, and re-
bukes the Reformer for " reviling us with slippery words, the
like of which yon will not find in the Bible, by which example
you justify yourself." Moreover, "We heard you debate, and
when accused by Eck of being a patron of the Hussites, blus-
teringly deny the charge, although you asserted that certain

224 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

articles of Huss, for which he was condemned, were right
Christian. Then, acting as a friend, we had a private interview
with you." In conclusion: "My dear Luther, keep the gospel
you have drawn from under the bushel, we will stand by the
gospel of Christ as the Church holds it, so help us God ! "

The hostility of Duke George to the new faith was more than
balanced by the adherence of his son-in-law. After the death of
Frederic of Saxony, the ablest champion of Lutheranism was
Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. His enterprise and ambition made
him a great contrast to the cautious, diplomatic elector. Early
left fatherless, he had been declared of age by his guardian,
the Emperor Maximilian, at thirteen. Four years later he had
met Luther at the Diet of Worms, and, attracted by the monk's
courage, had wished him godspeed. In spite of the alliance with
Duke George, whose daughter Christina he married in 1523,
he heartily embraced the new faith and entered into the league
of Torgau, with Electoral Saxony and other states, for its sup-
port. The suppression of the successive revolts of the knights
and of the peasants having been largely due to his ability, he
had conceived high ambitions for extending his religion and for
his personal aggrandizement.

In 1528 a plot almost precipitated a general war, to which,
perhaps, he would not have been averse as a means to these
ends. Such a conflict he may have regarded as inevitable ; at
any rate he became convinced that there was an understanding
between the supporters of the old faith to suppress the new
heresy and expropriate himself and the Elector of Saxony. His
suspicions were confirmed by an ex-counsellor of Duke George,
Dr. Otto von Pack, who brought the Landgrave a document
purporting to be a treaty between Ferdinand and a number of
Catholic princes to extirpate Luther and his followers, and if
necessary eject Philip and John the Steadfast from their re-
spective domains. Though a forgery, this document concurred
so aptly with the Landgrave's suspicions that, never doubting it,
he at once communicated its contents to the equally unsuspect-
ing Elector and Luther. Hesse armed forthwith and began a
campaign against one of the bishops named in the treaty, and
forced him to pay an indemnity. Philip urged John to do the

GERMAN POLITICS 225

same, but at Luther's advice the Elector first consulted the
Imperial Executive Council and questioned Duke George. Ex-
planations were simultaneously offered from all sides that no-
thing was known of the treaty. Philip, who has sometimes been
charged with being the instigator of the whole affair, gave up
his suspicions with the utmost reluctance. Neither was the
Reformer ever convinced by the official dementis, but believed
to his dying day that, treaty or no treaty, the conspiracy had
actually existed. Of it he wrote : —

TO WENZEL LINK AT NUREMBERG

(Wittenberg,) June 14, 1528.
Grace and peace. You know more news than I can tell you. You
see what a commotion this confederacy of wicked princes has caused.
They deny it, to be sure, but I consider Duke George's extremely
cool denial as equivalent to a confession. Let them protest as they
please, I know what I know ; that confederacy is no mere chimaera,
though it is a most monstrous monster. . . . May God confound that
worst of fools [Duke George] who, like Moab, boasts more than he
can do and waxes proud beyond his power. We shall pray against
those homicides ; hitherto we have spared them, but if they try any-
thing again we shall pray God and exhort our princes to make them
perish without quarter, inasmuch as those insatiable blood-suckers will
not rest until they make Germany reek with gore. . . .

This letter was indiscreetly shown by Link to friends, one of
whom sent a copy of' it to Duke George. The insulted prince
wrote imperiously to Luther, asking him if he had sent the ob-
noxious missive to Link. The Reformer replied on October 31,
saying that he would answer neither yes nor no, and begging that
in future he be left untroubled by such communications. The
Duke complained to the Elector, and answered in a printed
letter of November. In reply to this, Luther published,' in
December, an article On Secret and Stolen Letters, vehemently
accusing his adversary of theft of the mails, and bidding him
find out from the man who sent him the letter what he wanted
to know about it. George answered again, in January, 1529,
but the altercation was carried on no further until a new cause
kindled the old hatred.

226 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Though the Kecess of Spires certainly did not intend to
legalize the Reformation, nevertheless it was a considerable
gain to the Evangelic party, giving them the possibility of a
wide interpretation, at their own risk, of the course of action
for which they would be answerable to God and the Emperor.
Charles had strictly forbidden the Estates to meddle with the
religious question, and after passing the Recess they had sent
him a humble petition for more liberty. Had he been able to
enforce the Edict of Worms and stamp out the heresy at once,
he would certainly have done so, but he was for many years too
much entangled with foreign wars to venture strong measures
against powerful subjects. When, by the victory of Pavia,
February 24, 1525, he had defeated the rival Valois, and by
the sack of Rome, May, 1527, he had temporarily mastered the
Pope, he still had an arduous task before him in the conflict
with the Turks. At Mohacs, in August, 1526, Sultan Suliman
had routed the Hungarian army, and slain its king. The im-
minent danger of an invasion of Germany was not averted
until the Turks were repulsed at Vienna, in October, 1529.
For a moment it looked as if the mutual animosities of the
Christians would be buried in their fear and detestation of the
common foe. Luther was strongly in favor of such a course and
took pains to clear himself of the imputation that he shared the
views of those Anabaptists who, like the later Quakers, taught
that all war was wrong. This he did, first in a tract entitled
Whether Soldiers can be in a State of Grace (1526), in which
he says : —

What people now write and say about war being such a curse is
true. But we should remember how much greater a curse may some-
times be avoided by war.

Men should not, indeed, he continues, fight in a cause they
know to be wrong, but when in doubt they are bound to follow
their sovereign, on whom God places all the responsibility.
This pamphlet he followed up by another On the Turkish
War, which he dedicated to Philip of Hesse^ in a letter dated
October 9, 1528. In it he says : —

Certain persons have been begging me for the past five years to

GERMAN POLITICS 227

stir up our people against the Turk, and now as he is actually ap-
proaching they have compelled me to fulfil this duty. I regret to learn
that some mistaken preachers in Germany instruct the people not to
fight against the Turk ; some are so silly as to say it does not become
a Christian to bear arms, and some say that the Germans are such a
wild and wicked folk, half devil and half man, that they need the
Turk to rule them. All the blame for such wicked nonsense is put
upon Luther and upon my Evangelic doctrine, just as I had to bear
the blame of the Peasants' War, and of all the rest of the evil in the
world, although my accusers know that their charges are false. . . .
I dedicate this book to your Grace as a powerful, famous prince,
both to make it more widely read and to give it greater influence
with other princes if it comes to a campaign against the infidel. . . .

Philip was not, however, convinced by the arguments of the
Reformer. He was one of the first to suggest that pressure be
brought to bear on the Emperor by refusal of supplies for this
war. If anything could justify such an attitude it was the hard
position in which the Evangelic leaders found themselves at the
Diet of Spires in 1529. The Catholic majority here passed a de-
cree, called a Recess, most unfavorable to the reformers. All
Catholic States were commanded to execute the persecuting
Edict of Worms, although' toleration for adherents of the old faith
was demanded from Lutheran States. The governments of both
religions were to refuse toleration to any new doctrine, a pro-
vision aimed both at Zwingli and the Anabaptists ; finally no
prince should take another's subjects under his protection. The
Recess as a whole was intended to prevent further growth of the
Lutheran Church and all toleration of other reformed sects. It
called forth from the minority of the Estates the celebrated Pro-
test from which the name Protestant is derived. In this pro-
clamation the Lutheran princes and cities declared that they
could not in conscience abide by the provisions of the Recess
and appealed to the Emperor to annul them.

As Charles was far from inclined to accede to their wishes,
the question soon came up in a practical form whether it were
lawful to resist him by force. To decide this point a congress of
the protesting princes was held at Nuremberg in January, 1530.
Luther's opinion had been previously asked and given to the

228 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

effect that armed resistance of the Emperor by individual states
was tantamount to rebellion. Philip of Hesse was too ambitious
to be content with this answer : he voted not only to resist the
Emperor but to call in the national enemy France ; failing this
he proposed as next best to refuse Charles military aid against
the Turks. He tried to get Luther's support in this measure, but
with little success. The reply he received shows how little polit-
ical were the Reformer's thoughts ; nay, what a dislike, almost
contempt, he entertained for temporal means of religious pro-
paganda : —

TO PHILIP, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE

(Wittenberg,) December 16, 1529.
Grace and peace in Christ. Serene, highborn Prince, gracious Lord.
The messenger has just brought your Grace's letter, informing me what
unrighteous plots are brewed by the priests and the Emperor. I trust in
God, who boasts in the Psalter that he makes nought the plans of god-
less princes and peoples, that he will hear us now and make these plans,
too, come to nought. My hope is confident, because-those priests boast
loudly and rely on the Emperor and on human help and do not call on
God nor ask after him. May God guard us from relying on our wis-
dom and strength and make us desire his help and wait on it ; then
it will certainly come. Your Grace asks me to advise my sovereign not
to give the Emperor help against the Turks until a general peace is
made. I do not know, and have never cared to inquire what was done
at Spires and at Schmalkal&en, and so at this time I am unable to an-
swer you ; but if my advice is asked, I will, with God's aid, give it
to the best of my ability, and pray God that in this matter of binding
consciences his will and not that of the princes may be done. Amen.
I commend your Grace to Christ. Amen.

Martin Luther.

CHAPTER XX

CHURCH BUILDING

Persecution of the Lutherans was first felt in the Netherlands.
It was bitter to the founder of the new Church to hear that two
of his followers arrested for heresy had recanted. On June 27,
1522,he wrote Staupitz that one of them, James Probst, deserved
to lose his life on account of his damnable recantation. But the
inquisitors soon found men of sterner stuff, and on July 1, 1523,
they burned two young men at Brussels for their faith. When
the Wittenberg reformer heard of their fate tears started to his
eyes and he murmured that he had not been found worthy to
suffer for Christ. This mood yielded to one of spiritual joy which
found rich expression in a hymn describing the heroic death of
the martyrs and in a letter to their countrymen : —

TO THE CHRISTIANS OF HOLLAND, BRABANT, AND FLANDERS

(Wittenberg, July ? 1523.)
Praise and thanks be to the Father of all mercy, who at this time
lets us see his wonderful light, hitherto hidden on account of our sins
while we were compelled to submit to the terrible power of Antichrist.
But now the time has come when the voice of the turtle is heard in the
land, and flowers appear on the earth. Of what joy, dear friends, have
you been participants, you who have been the first to witness unto us.
For it has been given unto you before all the world not only to hear
the gospel and to know Christ but to be the first to suffer, for Christ's
sake, shame and injury, wrong and distress, imprisonment and death.
Now you have become full of fruit and so strong that you have watered
the cause with your blood. For among you those two precious jewels of
Christ, Henry and John, have held their lives of no account for Christ's
Word. Oh how miserably were those two souls condemned, but how
gloriously with eternal joy will they meet Christ and justly condemn
those by whom they were unjustly condemned ! . . . How welcome
was that fire which helped them from this sinful life to eternity, from
this ignominy to everlasting dominion ! . . . And although our ad-

230 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

versaries will cry out that those saints were Hussites, Wiclifites, and
Lutherans, we should not wonder but rather let this strengthen us the
more, for Christ, too, had a cross and slanderers. Our judge is not far
off, who will give another judgment; of that we are certain. . . .

While animating his cohorts to the fray, the captain was
straining every nerve to supply an organization and discipline
adequate to their needs. On returning from the Wartburg he
had found things in great confusion and his first task was to
restore order. The old form of service with slight alterations
was reestablished in the parish church. Communion was admin-
istered in one or in both kinds according to the preference of
the recipient ; and the only change in the mass was the omission
of the words purporting to change the elements into Christ's
body and blood, an alteration made easy, as the Reformer re-
marked, by the fact that the parishioners did not know Latin
and hence could not perceive it. A like moderation was used in
respect to images ; believers were discouraged from praying to
the saints, but the heads of neither the images nor their vener-
ators were broken as under the Carlstadt regime.

But with time a new and improved service was introduced.
An important change, made as early as 1524, was the use of
the vernacular instead of the learned language in the house
of God. In 1526, under the name of German Mass, Luther
published an Evangelic plan for public worship, consisting of the
Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the singing of hymns, the reading of
the Bible, and a sermon. In the preface he carefully guards
against the danger of having this service turned into a universal
law ; he is moved to write it by the general demand for such
a work, but he leaves it free to any one to alter or improve as
lie will.

The material for this service was largely furnished by Luther.
In translating the Bible — of which more will be said in a sep-
arate chapter — the foundation for the exposition of the Scrip-
ture in the vernacular was laid. More extraordinary is the fact
that seeing the need of good German hymns the Reformer should
have written them himself. It is one of the most surprising
phenomena in literary history that a man of forty should sud-
denly develop considerable poetic talent in response to a definite

CHURCH BUILDING 231

practical requirement. Yet such is the case. In the last days of
1523 he began to collect hymns, to write them himself, and to
urge his friends to do the like. The next year the fruit of his
efforts appeared in a book of Spiritual Songs for which the
tunes were supplied or adapted from older ones, by a local com-
poser, John Walthen This contained twenty-four hymns, of
which eighteen are by Luther. After this remarkable outburst
the songs came more slowly but never ceased. A second hymn-
book, printed probably in February, 1528, contained four new
ones by Luther including Ein Feste Burg, composed during
the dark days of illness and trial in the preceding year. From
time to time new hymns by the same author are known to
have been introduced into the Wittenberg service, and in 1543
another book was printed with several recently composed. In all
there are extant forty-two hymns from the Reformer's pen, and
fifteen other bits of versification, including an epitaph for his
daughter, some verses on his housekeeping, and several lam-
poons.

It must be owned that much of this verse is almost without
poetic inspiration. The Ten Commandments and the Creed are
hardly happy subjects for this treatment, especially when the
writer's object is to make his verse as literal, that is, as near
prose, as possible. Most of the hymns are based on Psalms or
other portions of Scripture ; others are paraphrases of old Latin
hymns. Little of the Gothic grandeur of these latter is pre-
served in the German version, the language of which is highly
popular. In the instructions sent to Spalatin for hymn- writing,
early in 1524, the author reveals his own principles. " Please
omit all new-fangled court expressions," he says, " for to win
popularity a song must be in the most simple and common lan-
guage, although the words should be good and apt, and the
meaning plain and as nearly like the original as possible. The
translation may be free ; only keep to the sense, changing the
words where convenient. I have not as much talent in this
direction as I wish I had, but I will do my best."

In applying these principles Luther took for his model the
ballad poetry so popular in his own day, and many of his songs
vividly recall these verses. The sing-song meter, the common-

232 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

place expressions, the rough rhymes often succeed in vulgariz-
ing religion rather than in making it poetical. But this is not
the case in all instances. Poetry is the language of strong feel-
ing, and when moved to the depths of his deep nature Luther
produced an immortal lyric. Several of his efforts are good ;
one is really great ; the battle hymn of the Evangelic Church,
the Marseillaise, as Heine called it, of the Keformation : —

AIn f este burg ist unser Gott,
ain gutte wor un waffen,
Er hilfft uns frey aus aller not,
Die uns yetzt hat betroff en.

Der alt bose feynd,

mitt ernst ers yetzt meint,

gross macht un vil list

sein grausam rustung ist,

auff erd ist nicht seins gleichen.1

Not without a struggle was the improved form of public
worship introduced. The chief opposition came from the vested
interests of priests holding endowed masses. There were a large
number of these in the Castle Church at Wittenberg and also
in one of the churches at Altenburg, the capital of Ernestine
Saxony. From 1523-26 the Reformer's letters are full of fierce
denunciation of these " priests of Baal," whom, however, he was
unable to oust on account of Frederic's settled policy of laissez-
faire in religious matters. In a published letter to Bartholomew
von Starenberg, of September 1, 1523, after consoling him for the
loss of his wife he earnestly warns him against having masses
or vigils said for her soul, " for they are unchristian things
greatly angering God. Any one can see that there is no serious
faith in them but only useless mumbling. We must pray differ-
ently to be heard by God, for such services are a mockery of
him . . . instituted by priests for the sake of lucre."

1 God is to us a fortress strong,
A weapon never failing,
He helps us freely in the throng
Of mortal ills prevailing.

Our ancient foe accurst
Now means to do his worst,
Great craft and power are his
And armed with them he is

On earth without an equal

CHURCH BUILDING 233

The yictory for the reformed faith was not entirely won until
the accession of John the Steadfast, in May, 1525, brought
Ernestine Saxony under an avowed convert. From this time
forth the Evangelic Church was the dominant religious body
within that territory ; to insure its supremacy laws were passed
abolishing the objectionable rites and enforcing uniformity in
the churches. Some form of church government had to be estab-
lished, and this came in the institution of a system of visitation,
first suggested by John Frederic in 1524, but not undertaken
until 1527. Able and educated men, among them Luther and
Melanchthon, were sent around to the various parishes to see that
the incumbents were competent, to arrange for the finances, and
to institute the reformed services. The result of the first tour
of inspection was disheartening ; many of the priests were still
attached to the old Church ; most of them were very ignorant, one
or two not even knowing the Ten Commandments or the Lord's
Prayer, and some were immoral. The people, too, were sunk in
abject superstition and ignorance. To give method to the plan
of visitation an Instruction was drawn up in 1528 by Melanch-
thon and Luther. The supervisors were to instruct the priests
in doctrine, with especial emphasis upon repentance ; the Ten
Commandments were to be diligently preached ; of free will the
people were to be told that a man had the power of choice to do
good or evil, but that this power availed nothing to salvation.
The sacraments and services of the Church were explained.
Above all the preachers were to exhort parents to send their
children to school, and a proper curriculum was suggested. The
first class was to learn to read from primers with the alphabet,
the creed and certain prayers in them ; next they should be taught
to write, and Latin from the grammar of Donatus and the Dis-
ticha Moralia of Dionysius Cato, and the elements of music.
The second class was to continue music and to read iEsop's
Fables in Latin, and selections from Erasmus' Colloquies. The
method was to be that recommended by Milton a century later ;
the teacher was to read, translate, and explain a certain por-
tion of the text one day for the class to recite the next. Some
poetry was to be learned by heart. Proper instruction in re-
ligion was to be given. The older children were to follow up

234 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

this programme with Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, music, and more
religion.

— On education Luther relied the most. What is the use of
forcing through reforms which the people are too ignorant to
appreciate or even to want ? It was with the object of training
men and women in his ideas that early in 1529 he published two
of his most influential works, the Long and Short Catechisms.
The former came out in April under the title German Cate-
chism, and was intended to supplement the German Mass. A few
weeks later appeared the Enchiridion, or Short Catechism, which
was merely an abbreviation and simplification of the previous
work.

Luther's purpose was so practical, and his sources so obvi-
ous, that it is almost needless to seek for precedents for his
catechisms. Nevertheless it is interesting to know that he
had examples in the instruction given to catechumens in the
mediaeval Church. Characteristics of his work are: 1. There is
no system of dogma set forth in technical terms, and no argu-
mentation whatever. 2. There is no polemic against Rome or
against the sacramentarians, a contrast to the contemporary
and subsequent catechisms of other Churches and leaders.
3. Theology is rescued from its old, stiff forms and made really
simple and easy of comprehension.

In the preface to the smaller work the author begins : " The
lamentable, miserable need which I saw when I visited the par-
ishes has induced me to compose this summary of Christian
doctrine in short, easy form." Good Heavens ! how little the
people, and even the pastors know! The object of the work is
partly to introduce a uniform teaching of the Creed, Paternoster,
and sacraments so as not to confuse the common man, but it
must not be regarded as an irrevocable law. The people are free
to choose another form if they prefer, only they must keep to it
once chosen. The longer book begins with an earnest exhorta-
tion to a thorough study of its contents. Let not any one think
that a single reading is sufficient, but let him con it by heart
and read it every day. " For I do the same," says the author ;
" like a child I study it every day, and each morning' that I have
time I say the Decalogue, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and

CHURCH BUILDING 235

some Psalms." The priests are exhorted (in the Short Cate-
chism) to explain the contents to the people, see that they learn
it and insist that they attend communion at least four times a
year.

The Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer
are set forth and explained clause by clause. In expounding
the third commandment (as he numbers it), " Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy," the Reformer says that this cere-
monial law was only given to the Jews and that Christians are
free from it ; nevertheless it is useful to rest on one day in the
week for natural reasons and for the cultivation of the spiritual
life. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are
explained. In a later edition of the Short Catechism, of 1531,
a similar explanation of penance was inserted, with a form of
private confession. The use of this, however, is left to in-
dividual judgment ; if a man does not know that he has com-
mitted any of the sins mentioned, which is stated to be hardly
possible, he may receive absolution after the general confession
in church.

Forms of family prayer and religious instruction are given,
with blessing and grace for meal-times. Certain sayings from
Scripture on the respective duties of pastors, husbands, wives,
parents, children, masters, servants, and widows are set forth.

To the Small Catechism was added a marriage service, a
baptismal service and form of private confession with instruc-
tions to the priest as to how to treat the penitent. Luther re-
garded marriage more as a civil contract than as a religious
matter, and expressly states that each country may follow its
own customs in the matter. According to his service a portion
of the ceremony took place in the evening, the couple were
then led to the bride bed, and the blessing on their union took
place the following morning. In this Luther but followed the
custom of his day. The baptismal service is strikingly different
from that in use in most churches now. The evil spirit was
first exorcised from the child, who was then asked a number of
questions on its religious attitude, answered by the sponsors,
of whom there were a considerable number.

The Catechism, many editions of which were printed and

236 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

rapidly used up, exerted an enormous influence, and is still the
spiritual pabulum of the majority of Germans as well as of
Lutherans in other lands. Its author had a justifiable pride in
his work. He once declared that he would be willing for all
his books to perish save the Catechism and the Unfree Will.
During the Diet of Augsburg, in the summer of 1530, he wrote
the Elector that thanks to this simple instruction the youth of
Saxony now understood the Bible better than monks and nuns
had done under the old regime. He sums up the position to
which he assigned it in the words : " It is a right Bible for the
laity."

The Evangelic faith spread from Saxony to neighboring
lands, the first of which was Hesse. Philip, the young land-
grave, set about the conversion of his subjects with character-
istic promptness, drawing up an ordinance in 1526 commanding
the adoption of the Saxon service and system and church
visitation. This he submitted to the Wittenberg professor.
The answer is highly characteristic of the Reformer. He had
introduced his system as gradually as possible in his own
country, and distrusted the rapid methods of Philip. The letter
which he wrote in answer to the Landgrave's request for an
opinion, is worthy, in its statesmanship, of Burke.

TO PHILIP, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE

Wittenberg, January 7, 1527.
Grace and peace in Christ. Serene, highborn Prince, gracious Lord.
To the request which your Grace makes for an opinion of your Ordin-
ance, I answer unwillingly, inasmuch as many blame us, as if we of
Wittenberg would force every one to do as we do, although we know
that God wills otherwise and that others can do well without our aid.
But to oblige your Grace, and since the Ordinance might raise an
outcry if published without my consent, I humbly and faithfully
advise you not to allow it to be printed at this time, for I have never
had, and have not now, sufficient courage to pass so many radical
laws at once. In my opinion we should act as did Moses, who only
wrote down his laws after they had been put in practice among the
people. Your Grace should provide the schools with good teachers
and the parishes with good pastors, and begin by oral command and

CHURCH BUILDING 237

private instruction and let the innovations be gradual and proceed farther
when things get started and are going of themselves. Then the Ordin-
ance could be published and all priests commanded to obey it; I
know well and have learned that laws passed prematurely are seldom
well obeyed, as the people are not used to them nor ready for them,
as those legislators who sit apart devising laws may think. Making
laws and enforcing them are vastly different things. By this Ordin-
ance you would change much arbitrarily. But when some of the
reforms have been already put into practice it will be easy to pass
the law. Legislation is a great, noble, comprehensive thing, and can-
not be successful without the spirit of God, for which we must humbly
pray. Moderation is necessary ; after customs are rooted, laws will
follow of themselves. This necessity has been experienced by the
greatest law-givers ; Moses, Christ, the Romans, and the Pope. . . .

Your Grace's devoted,

Martin Luther.

CHAPTEK XXI

ULKICH ZWINGLI

The tendency of Protestantism to split up into manifold sects
has often been noticed and explained. When once individual
judgment is set up against authority, all the revolting leader's
followers will claim the same privilege against him. Even be-
fore the revolting Church had made its position secure against
Rome, it divided into many sects. Most of these were small, and,
though holding the most diverse and even opposite opinions,
were classed together under the name of Anabaptist ; but besides
the Lutheran community there was one other of great import-
ance. Its leader was Ulrich Zwingli ; the doctrinal difference
of the two Churches was on the eucharist.

The theory of the Roman Catholic Church, at least for sev-
eral centuries, had been that the bread and wine in the Lord's
Supper were actually turned into the body and blood of Jesus,
though without a corresponding change in the accidents of taste,
appearance, and so forth ; this is transubstantiation. Luther's
theory, known as consubstantiation, is nearly allied to it, namely,
that though there was no actual change, yet the body of the
Saviour was present with the natural bread and wine as fire is in
red-hot iron, or a sword in a sheath, and that it was so truly
present that it was " bitten by the teeth " of the communicant.
The belief adopted by Zwingli and most of the other Reformed
Churches was that the rite was merely commemorative and that
the body and blood of Christ were partaken of in a purely figur-
ative and spiritual sense.

This doctrine came to Luther's attention soon after his return
from the Wartburg (if not before) in the writings of a certain r
Honius, in those of the Bohemian Brethren, and in the pam-
phlets of Carlstadt, who taught it, along with his other advanced
tenets, while Luther was away. The Reformer speaks of it in his
letter to the Christians of Strassburg, of December 14, 1524, as
follows : —

ULRICH ZWINGLI 239

I freely confess that if Carlstadt or any other could have convinced
me five years ago that there was nothing in the sacrament but mere
bread and wine, he would have done me a great service. I was sorely
tempted on this point and wrestled with myself and tried to believe
that it was so, for I saw that I could thereby give the hardest rap to the
papacy. I read treatises by two men who wrote more ably in defence of
the theory than has Dr. Carlstadt and who did not so torture the Word
to their own imaginations. But I am bound ; I cannot believe as they
do ; the text is too powerful for me and will not let itself be wrenched
from the plain sense by argument.

And if any one could prove to-day that the sacrament were mere
bread and wine, he would not much anger me if he was only reason-
able. (Alas I am too much inclined that way myself when I feel the old
Adam !) But Dr. Carlstadt's ranting only confirms me in the opposite
opinion.

Luther's work Against the Heavenly Prophets of Images and
the Sacrament has been noticed in a previous chapter. The
second half of it, appearing January, 1525, was entirely on the
subject of the sacrament. This work was not particularly suc-
cessful ; in fact it seemed rather to alienate some men who were
hesitating between the two dogmas.

The controversy might have fallen into oblivion, especially
after the disgrace of Carlstadt and Miinzer in the Peasants'
Revolt, had it not been taken up by one of the ablest men of
the generation, Ulrich Zwingli.

Born at Wildhaus, Switzerland, January 1, 1484, he had re-
ceived a humanistic education and entered the Church in 1506.
After varied experiences as an army chaplain and parish priest,
he was called to Zurich in December, 1519, and here, quite inde-
pendently of the Wittenberg movement, he began a similar re-
formation. He at once protested against the sale of indulgences
and with success ; he then proceeded to other reforms, especially
on lines suggested by the writings of Erasmus, whose ardent
admirer he was. He soon rose to the leading position in the city,
and, carrying his reform further than had Luther, was able, in
April, 1525, to abolish the mass and substitute for it a simple
communion service.

The wide difference between the personal experiences and

240 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

careers of the two reformers is chiefly accountable for the di-
vergence of their opinions. The German had gone through a
rebirth of spiritual anguish which made the forgiveness of sin
the central point of his theology as of his life ; the Swiss had
never felt this need so strongly ; the central idea of his theo-
logy was that of Christian fellowship fostered by the analogy
of the republican freedom of the canton. Again, Luther was at
bottom a monk, reasoning with the depth, and also with some-
thing of the limitations, of scholastic philosophy ; Zwingli was
a humanist, anxious only to get at the exact meaning of the
Greek Testament.

It is possible that the two men might have agreed on this
point, at least better than they did, had it not been for the
unfortunate manner in which Zwingli first crossed Luther's
horizon, as a supporter of Carlstadt and " the ranters." When
the division of the two became recognized, it was deepened
by the proud consciousness, on the part of each leader, of the
independence of his own movement. How bitterly Luther felt
against men whom he regarded as rebels and traitors may be
seen in a letter : —

TO NICHOLAS HAUSMANN AT ZWICKAU

(Wittenberg,) January 20, 1526.

Grace and peace in the Lord. I wrote Duke George 1 with good
hope, but am deceived. I have lost my humility and shall not write
him another word. Indeed I am not moved by his lies and his curses.
Why should I not bear with him who am compelled to bear with
these sons of my body, my Absaloms, who withstand me so furiously ?
They are scourges of the sacrament compared with whose madness
the papists are mild. I never understood before how evil a spirit is
Satan, nor did I comprehend Paul's words about spiritual wickedness.
But Christ lives. Now Theobald Billican, pastor at Nordlingen, writes
against Zwingli, Carlstadt, and CEcolampadius. God raises up the
faithful remnant against the new heretics ; we greatly hope that
Christ will bless the undertaking. I would write against them if I had
time, but first I wish to see what Billican does.

I am glad that my book on the Unfree Will pleased you, but I
expect the same or worse from Erasmus as from Duke George.
1 December, 1525, cf. p. 223.

ULRICH ZWINGLI 241

•

That reptile will feel himself taken by the throat and will not be
moved by my moderation. God grant that I be mistaken, but I know
the man's nature ; he is an instrument of Satan unless God change
him. I have no other news. Farewell and pray for me.

Martin Luther.

In a similar strain the Reformer says in his Answer to the
King of England's Libel (1527) : " Hitherto I have suffered in
all ways. But not until now did my Absalom, my dear son,
hunt and shame his father David. My Judas [Zwingli] had
not yet shamed the disciples and betrayed his master ; but now
he has done his worst on me."

The new " Judas " had simply published, in February, 1526,
a pamphlet entitled True and False Eeligion, and followed it
up soon after with A Clear Explanation of Christ's Supper.
Along with cogent argument in support of his position that the
elements were mere bread and wine, the author alleges that the
truth of his opinion has been revealed to him in a dream. This
method of proof unfortunately impressed Luther still more
deeply with the idea that Zwingli's " spirit " was akin to that
of Miinzer and the prophets who had cultivated dreams with
such disastrous results. His works had considerable success,
however ; so many of the South German pastors came over to
the Swiss opinion that the leader was able to prophesy that
within three years all Christendom would be converted.

Luther replied in a comprehensive treatise, entitled That
these Words of Christ, " This is my Body," still stand against
the Ranting Spirits (March, 1527). The greater part of this
book is a proof from Scripture that the words quoted in the
title are to be taken literally. The theory of the opposite party,
that Christ's body cannot be in the bread because it is in
heaven, is rebutted by showing, from mediaeval philosophy, that
it may be extended through space, and is, in fact, omnipresent.
Again, a careful exegesis of John vi, 63, " The flesh profiteth
nothing," is devoted to proving that Christ's flesh is not meant,
as supposed by the Swiss. Further proofs are adduced from
other passages of Scripture and from the fathers. The last
part of the book is devoted to a practical exposition of the use,
necessity, and significance of the sacrament, which last, in

242 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Luther's opinion, would be entirely destroyed if the consecrat-
ing words were not taken literally.

While Luther was writing this, Zwingli had composed two
treatises, A Friendly Exegesis of Christ's Words, and A
Friendly Appeasement and Rebuttal, the former in Latin, the
latter in the vernacular (Friintliche verglimpfung und abley-
nung), both of which he sent to his opponent with a letter of
April 1. His tone was pastoral, not to say pedagogical; he
seemed to instruct Luther in calm superiority ; though perhaps
he intended to be conciliatory he was in fact extremely irritat-
ing to the older man, to whom he said : " You have produced
nothing on this subject worthy either of yourself or of the
Christian religion, and yet your ferocity daily increases." Lu-
ther wrote on May 4 to Wenzel Link : " Zwingli has sent me
his foolish book and a letter written in his own hand worthy
of his haughty spirit. So gentle was he, raging, foaming, and
threatening, that he seems to me incurable and condemned by
manifest truth. — And my comprehensive book has profited
many."

In the mean time the Swiss received the last-named work of
the Wittenberg professor. They were greatly exasperated by
its violent tone ; Zwingli writing Vadian on May 4 " that its
whole contents were nothing but lies, slander, sycophancy, and
suspicion."

A reply, composed by Zwingli and GEcolampadius, was pub-
lished in June under the title That these Words of Christ,
" This is my Body," still have the same old Sense. It was dedi-
cated to John, Elector of Saxony.

• Luther was too ill to read it at once. His answer, a huge
Confession on Christ's Supper, appeared in February, 1528. He
is glad, he declares, that his words have so greatly angered
Satan, by which sign he knows that they have done much good.
He goes over the old arguments with more thoroughness than
before, refuting first Zwingli's philosophy and then his exegesis
of Scripture, showing that he contradicts the Bible, the fathers,
and himself.

The book only increased the rage without shaking the con-
victions of the sacramentarians. Capito wrote that Luther had

ULRICH ZWINGLI 243

hurt himself by it ; Zwingli judged that it was " a denial of
what Luther had said before, and a fog through which Christ's
mystery could not be discerned." He, and CEcolampadius, pub-
lished in one book Two Answers to Martin Luther's Book. It
was dedicated, in a letter dated July 1, 1528, to the Elector
John and the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, whom Zwingli re-
fused to salute with the customary titles "highborn" and
" serene," "because," as he explained to them, "you are only
highborn in comparison to the world and the flesh, but before
God you are mean ; and serene [German Durchlaut, literally
transparent] is a word which is only applicable to glass win-
dows."

That one, at least, of the princes thus addressed did not take
the letter ill, is shown by the attempt of Philip of Hesse to recon-
cile the opposing sections of the Reformed Church. His main
motive was political, for he saw that in union was strength and
he wished to make an alliance between the German Protestant
states and the Swiss cantons. He was, however, something of a
theologian himself ; he had a clearer comprehension of Zwingli's
opinion than had Luther and was, perhaps, inclined to adopt it
himself. Hoping to bring about an understanding that would
enable both parties to present a united front to the common
enemy, he invited the reformers and other distinguished theo-
logians to a conference at his capital, Marburg. After some
negotiation the consent of all concerned was secured and during
the last days of September, 1529, the famous divines gathered
in the pretty Hessian town on the banks of the Lahn. All were
received right royally by the host, of whom Luther many years
afterwards related the following characteristic bit : —

At Marburg Philip went around like a stable-boy, concealing his
deep thoughts with small talk as great men do. He said to Melanch-
thon : " Shall I suffer the Archbishop of Mayence to take away my
clergy by force?" To which the latter replied: " Yes, if they are
under the jurisdiction of that see." Then the Landgrave said : " I have
asked your advice on this, but I won't take it."

The public discussion was preceded by private conferences
of the leaders. At these, or perhaps at the main discussion,

244 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Luther was annoyed by the display of humanistic learning made
by his opponent. Long afterwards he spoke of him in these
terms : —

People always want to seem more learned than they are. When
we were at Marburg, Zwingli wanted to speak Greek. Once, when he
was absent, I said : u Why is n't he ashamed to speak Greek in the
presence of so many learned classicists — QEcolampadius, Melanchthon,
Osiander, and Brent ? They know Greek." These words were carried
to him, wherefore the next day he excused himself in the presence
of the Landgrave by saying : " Illustrious Lord, I speak Greek because
I have read the New Testament for thirteen years." No indeed ! It is
more than reading the New Testament, it is vainglory that blinds
people. When Zwingli spoke German he wanted every one to adopt
the Swiss dialect. Oh, how I hate people who use so many languages
as did Zwingli : at Marburg he spoke Greek and Hebrew from the
pulpit.

The great colloquy took place on October 2, in the large,
darkly wainscotted hall of a noble castle, the battlements of
which, crowning the steep hill in the centre of the town, seem
rather to protect than to overawe the smiling region round-
about. Here, before an audience of some fifty or sixty notables,
Luther debated, for some hours, that autumn day, with Zwingli
and (Ecolampadius. The speaking was temperate, the arguments
in the main the old familiar ones. Though it can hardly be
denied that the German showed himself the better debater,

L/the result was indecisive, all persons retaining their former
opinions.

Although nothing, or next to nothing had been accomplished,
the Landgrave was anxious to have some tangible result to show
for all his trouble. He therefore induced his guests to draw up
a statement of their common beliefs, known as the Marburg
Articles. Fourteen of these articles were on points agreed toby
both sides ; the fifteenth defined the eucharist and stated that
the subscribers were unable to agree " on the bodily presence
of the body and blood " in the elements, with a prayer for
enlightenment. The principal divines present signed this con-
fession, but when Philip requested them to give each other the

• right hand of fellowship, Luther refused with the remark, es-

ULRICH ZWINGLI 245

pecially unfortunate on account of its previous connotations,
that the Swiss had a different spirit from his own. His idea of
what had been accomplished is given in the two letters next
translated, the former being especially interesting as his first
known letter to Katie. It shows that he confided his deepest in-
terests to her, though it appears that part of the letter, written
in Latin never used elsewhere by Martin in addressing his wife,
was intended rather for Bugenhagen than for her.

TO CATHARINE LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

(Marburg,) October 4, 1529.

Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Lord Katie, know that our
friendly conference at Marburg is now at an end and that we are in
perfect union in all points except that our opponents insist that there
is simply bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, and that Christ is only
in it in a spiritual sense. To-day the Landgrave did his best to make
us united, hoping that even though we disagreed yet we should hold
each other as brothers and members of Christ. He worked hard for
it, but we would not call them brothers or members of Christ, although
we wish them well and desire to remain at peace. I think to-morrow
or day after we shall depart to go and see the Elector at Schleitz
in Vogtland, whither he has summoned us.

Tell Bugenhagen that Zwingli's best argument was that a body
could not exist without occupying space and therefore Christ's body
was not in the bread, and that CEcolampadius' best argument was
that the sacrament is only the sign of Christ's body. I think God
blinded them that they could not get beyond these points. I have
much to do and the messenger is in a hurry. Say good-night to all
and pray for me. We are all sound and well and live like princes.
Kiss little Lena and Hans for me.

Your humble servant,

Martin Luther.

TO NICHOLAS GERBEL AT STRASSBURG

Marburg, October 4, 1529.
Grace and peace in Christ. You will know, my dear Gerbel, how
far we attained harmony at Marburg, partly by the verbal report
of your representatives, partly by the Articles they are taking with
them. We defended ourselves strongly and they conceded much, but
as they were firm in this one article of the sacrament of the altar we

246 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER'

dismissed them in peace, fearing that further argument would draw
blood. We ought to have charity and peace even with our foes, and
so we plainly told them, that unless they grow wiser on this point
they may indeed have our charity, but cannot by us be considered as
brothers and members of Christ. You will judge how much fruit
has come of this conference ; it seems to me that no small scandal
has been removed, since there will be no further occasion for dis-
putation, which is more than we had hoped for. Would that the
little difference still remaining might be taken away by Christ. Fare-
well, brother, and pray for me.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

CHAPTER XXII

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG. 1530

That the Edict of Worms remained a dead letter was due to
the excessive decentralization of the Empire. Since Charles had
left Germany after the memorable visit of 1520-21, three im-
portant diets, one held at Nuremberg (1524) and two at Spires
(1526 and 1529) had dealt with the religious question without
being able to enforce any consistent policy. The Emperor himself
had been too busy in his other dominions and with his French
and Turkish wars even to attempt to suppress the German her-
esy. Toward the end of 1529, however, the success of his arms
in other quarters enabled him to turn his attention northward.
Fully bent on settling the religious dispute for his subjects, he
summoned a diet to meet at Augsburg in 1530, announcing his
intention of being present at it himself.

Early in April of this year Luther, Melanchthon, and other
theologians set out from Wittenberg with the intention of ap-
pearing at the Diet. At Coburg, the most southern town of
Ernestine Saxony, they met the Elector, and waited for an
imperial safe-conduct before proceeding further. About the
middle of the month an urgent summons from Charles V to the
Elector John arrived, together with safe-conducts for himself
and others of his party, but none for Luther, who was still,
be it remembered, under the ban of both the Church and the
Empire. In these circumstances it was impossible for the out-
law to attend the meetings of the Estates, and accordingly when
John set out with the other theologians on April 22, he was
consigned to the castle near the town where he spent nearly six
months.

Feste Coburg, as the fortress is called, crowns a small emin-
ence, the only one in the region, and, like a little city built
on a hill, dominates the whole surrounding country. Within its
ample walls, picturesque towers, and rambling battlements, a

248 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

garrison might well be maintained. Without the austere grand-
eur of the Wartburg, with less of the romantic attraction of
Marburg, Feste Coburg surpasses both these castles in size and
situation.

With Luther were his amanuensis Veit Dietrich, his nephew
Cyriac Kaufmann, and some thirty retainers of the Elector,
From his retreat the Reformer kept up a lively correspondence
with his friends at Augsburg as well as with those left at Witten-
berg , there are extant almost as many letters written from the
castle as days he spent there. Among these epistles are many of
the finest he ever penned ; in some the depths of his religious faith
are sounded, in others the chinks and crannies of his deep love
are searched. Whatever he wrote is full of humor, of fancy, of
an idyllic love of nature and a childlike trust in God.

On the very day on which he moved into his new quarters
the Reformer tells of them thus : —

TO PHILIP MEL ANCHTHON (AT NUREMBERG?)

The Realm of the Birds at three p.m. (April 23, 1530).

Grace and peace in the Lord Jesus. I have come to my Sinai, dear-
est Philip, but I shall soon make it a Zion and build three tabernacles,
one for the Psalter, one for the Prophets, and one for iEsop — I speak
after the manner of men. It is indeed a very pleasant place and con-
venient for study, save that your absence saddens it.

I am beginning to be stirred up against the Turk and Mohammed,
even passionately when I see the intolerable fury of Satan waxing
proud against body and soul. I shall therefore pray and weep nor
cease until I know that my clamor has been heard in heaven. You
are more affected by the home-bred monsters of the Empire. We are
those to whom these last woes were predestined, to feel and suffer the
furious impetus of the final assault. But the attack itself is a witness
and prophecy of its own end and of our redemption.

I pray Christ to give you sleep and to free your heart from the
cares which are the fiery arrows of Satan. Amen. I write this at leis-
ure, not yet having received my books and papers. Neither have I
yet seen either of the castle wardens. I lack nothing ; this huge build-
ing crowning the hill is all mine ; the keys of all the rooms are given
to me. Thirty men are said to take their meals here, among them
twelve night guards and two scouts who keep watch from the towers.

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 249

Why should I write all this ? Because I have nothing else to do. By-
evening I hope the post will arrive and then I shall hear some news.
The grace of God be with you. Amen. Give my remembrances to Dr.
Caspar Lindemann and Spalatin. I shall ask Jonas to greet Agricola
and Adler for me.

Martin Luther.

To Wittenberg Luther also wrote of his new life. His large
household had not been entirely depleted. The guests who re-
mained wrote him a common letter giving the domestic news,
and he promptly answered them in this delightful epistle : —

TO HIS TABLE COMPANIONS

At the Diet op the Grain Turks, April 28, 1530.
Grace and peace unChrist. Dear gentlemen and friends, I have re-
ceived the letter which you all sent me and so have learned how every-
thing is. And that you may also learn how things are with us, I would
have you know that we, namely, Veit Dietrich, Cyriac Kaufmann, and
I, did not press on to the Diet of Augsburg, but stopped to attend an-
other diet here. There is a coppice directly under our windows, like a
little forest, where the daws and crows are holding a diet ; they fly to
and fro at such a rate and make such a racket day and night that they
all seem drunk, soused and silly. I wonder how their breath holds out
to bicker so. Pray tell me have you sent any delegates to these noble
estates ? For I think they must have assembled from all the world. I
have not yet seen their emperor, but nobles and soldier lads fly and
gad about, inexpensively clothed in one color ; all alike black, all alike
gray-eyed, all alike with the same song, sung in different tones of big
and little, old and young. They care not for a large palace to meet in,
for their hall is roofed with the vault of the sky, its floor is the carpet
of green grass, and its walls are as far as the ends of the world. They
do not ask for horses and trappings, having winged chariots to escape
snares and keep out of the way of man's wrath. They are great and
puissant lords, but I have not yet learned what they have decided upon.
As far as I can gather from an interpreter, however, they are for a
vigorous campaign against wheat, barley, oats, and all kinds of corn
and grain, a war in which many a knight will do great deeds.
So we sit here in the diet and spend time agreeably seeing and hear-
ing how the estates of the realm make merry and sing. It is pleasant
to see how soldierly they discourse and wipe their bills and arm them-

250 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

selves for victory against the grain. I wish them good luck — to be all
spitted on a skewer together. I believe they are in no wise different
from the sophists and papists who go for me with their sermons and
books all at once ; I see by the example of the harsh-voiced daws
what a profitable people they are, devouring everything on earth and
chattering loud and long in return.

To-day we heard the first nightingale, who could hardly believe that
it was April. The weather has been splendid, with no rain except a
little yesterday. Perhaps you are not so fortunate in this respect. God
bless you all. Keep house well.

Martin Luther.

With his dear wife, too, he kept up regular correspondence.
Just after his father's death she sent him a picture of their year-
old baby Magdalene, a pair of needed spectacles, and a box of
home comforts, for which he thanks her : —

TO CATHARINE LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

(Feste Coburg,) June 5, 1530.

Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Katie, I believe I have received
all your letters. This is my fourth to you since John left me for Wit-
tenberg. I have Lena's picture and the box you sent. At first I did
not know the little hussy, she seemed so dark. I think it would be a
first rate thing if you weaned her ; do it little by little as Argula von
Grumbach who has been here tells me she did with her son George.
John Reinecke of Mansfeld has also been to see me and so has George
Romer ; in fact I shall soon have to go elsewhere if the pilgrimage
hither continues.

Tell Christian Daring that I have never in my life had worse spec-
tacles than those that came with his letter ; I could not see a line
through them. I did not receive the note sent in care of Conrad Vater,
as I am not at Coburg, but I shall try to get it. You can send your
letters care of the superintendent, who will forward them to me.

Our friends at Nuremberg and Augsburg are beginning to doubt
whether anything will happen at the Diet, for the Emperor still tarries
at Innsbruck. The prelates have some infernal plot, God grant the
devil foul them. Amen. Let Bugenhagen read the copy of my letter to
Link. I must hurry, as the messenger will not wait. Greet, kiss, hug,
and be kind to each according to his degree.

Martin Luther.

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 251

Katie was not entirely dependent for information on the let-
ters of her husband. One to her from Veit Dietrich is too
characteristic of that interesting person and too good of its
kind to omit. The writer, now twenty-three years old, had come
to Wittenberg to study medicine, but abandoned that vocation
for theology when he came under the influence of Luther. He
became the professor's amanuensis in 1527 and was taken into
his house in 1529. His unbounded idolatry of the great man
led him to treasure all he wrote and all he said ; much of the
table-talk he noted down, as well as the letter given below, is
worthy of Boswell.

VEIT DIETRICH TO MISTRESS CATHARINE LUTHER AT
WITTENBERG

Festb Coburg, June 19, 1530.

Grace and peace in God. Kind, gracious, dear lady ! Know that
your husband and we are hale and hearty by God's grace. May God
also bless you and the children. You did a mighty good stroke of
work in sending the doctor the picture, for it makes him entirely for-
get his cares. He has hung it on the wall opposite the table in the
Elector's apartment where we eat. When he first saw it he did not
recognize it for a long time. " Dear me," said he, rt Lena is so dark ! *
But now it pleases him well, and the more he looks at it the better he
sees it is Lena. She looks extraordinarily like Hans in the mouth,
eyes, and nose, in fact in the whole face, and she will grow more like
him. I just had to write you this !

Dear lady, pray don't worry about the doctor ; he is, thank God,
hale and hearty, and, although his father's death was very bitter to
him, he ceased mourning for it after two days. When he read Rei-
necke's letter he said to me, " My father is dead." And then he took
his Psalter and went to his room and wept so much that for two days
he could n't work. Since then he has not given way to grief any more.
Saturday, June 3, the town clerk was our guest for the evening, and
the doctor told us, among other things, how he- had dreamed the night
before that he lost a tooth so large that it astonished him beyond
measure, and the next day came the news of his father's death ! I
thought you ought to know this, so pray take it with my service. May
God bless Hans and Lena and the whole household. My friend
George will give you three gulden, which please accept until I can
get more.

Veit Dietrich of Nuremberg.

252 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

What a picture of the man these chatty letters give ! As at
the Wartburg he dressed in laymen's clothes and grew a thick
beard. He had grown stouter and aged a little since then, more
with toil and illness than with his forty-seven years. Sometimes
he rambled about the wide-flung battlements, gazing with a
smile at the busy birds in the tree-tops, or lost in thought and
wonder at the mysteries of nature, the clouds, the rainbow,
and the stars.

Most of the time he spent in his little wooden room with the
narrow window, poring over the Hebrew prophets and the
Psalter, or adapting an old German translation of -ZEsop to
the needs of his own day, or writing letters. His first task was
the composition of A Warning to the Prelates at Augsburg which
was printed in May and sent to the Diet in June. He solemnly
begs the clergy there assembled not to make the session vain
and not to induce " the noble blood Charles " to damn him and
his doctrine. He insists that he is not responsible for the tu-
mults which have shaken Germany ; rather he alone withstood
the turbulent spirits " so that I might truly say that I was your
protector." He reminds them of his moderation at Worms and
recounts the history of his attacks on indulgences, confession,
penance, private masses, and monastic vows. If they ask what
good has come of the new teaching, he replies rather what good
has remained with his opponents ? Have they not perverted all
God's laws? Have they not abused the ban, the sacrament,
which ought to be administered in both kinds, and vows of
celibacy which ought to be left free? But they talk only of
these and similar things indifferent, whereas they should first
concern themselves with the primary things, the law, the gospel,
sin, grace, the gifts of the spirit, right repentance, Christian
freedom, faith, free will, and love, and next to these practical
reforms such as the erection of schools, hospitals, and the reg-
ulation of poor-relief.

Just after he had finished this, he had one of his old nervous
break-downs, partly due to overwork, partly to the unaccustomed
richness of the fare. Thus he writes : —

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 253

TO PHILIP MELANCHTHON AT AUGSBURG

Feste Coburg, May 12, 1530.

Grace and peace in the Lor.d. Dear Philip, I began to answer your
letter from Nuremberg on May 8, but business interfered to prevent
me finishing my reply. I have completed my Warning to the Pre-
lates and sent it off to the Wittenberg press. I have also translated
the two chapters of Ezekiel about Gog and have written a preface to
them, so that they can be printed at the same time. Then I took the
Prophets in hand and attacked the labor with such ardor that I hope
to finish it before Pentecost and after that turn to ^Esop and other
things. But the old outer man cannot keep up with the ardor of the
new inner man ; my head has begun to suffer from ringing or rather
thundering, and this has forced me to stop work. Yesterday and the
day before when I tried to work, I narrowly escaped fainting, and this
is the third day on which I am unable even to look at a letter of the
alphabet. I get worse as the years go by. My head (caput) is now a
mere heading (capitulum) or chapter, soon it will be a paragraph, and
then a bare sentence. I can do nothing but idle ... so now you know
why I am slow in answering your letter. On the day that it came
Satan was busy occupying my attention with an embassy. I was alone,
Dietrich and Cyriac were away, and Satan conquered me so far that
he forced me to leave my room and seek the society of men. I hardly
expected to see the day when that spirit would have so much power
and simply divine majesty.

Such is our domestic news ; other news comes from abroad, such
as that you mention about the strife between Eck and Billican. What
is happening at the Diet ? What do those blockish asses think of the
cause of the Church and how are they disposed ? But let them be.

Camerarius has sent me some dainties l consisting of fine grapes 1
and sack l and has written me two Greek letters. When I feel better
I shall write him in Turkish, that he too may have to read what he
does not understand. Why should he write me in Greek ?

I must stop now lest my head, still sensitive, go bad again. I pray ;
do you pray also. I would most willingly write, as you suggest, to the
Landgrave of Hesse and to the Elector and to all of you, but I must
take my own time. The Lord be with you. Give heed to my example
and be sure not to lose your head as I have done. I command you
and all my friends to keep regular habits for the sake of your health.
Do not kill yourself and then pretend you did it in God's service.
1 These three words are in the rare Greek used by Camerarius.

254 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

For God is just as well served, if not better, by resting, wherefore he
commanded the Sabbath to be rigidly kept. Do not despise this warn-
ing, for it is the word of God.

Martin Luther.

When the Elector heard of Luther's sufferings he sent him
a kind message not to worry about his enforced idleness, and at
the same time expressing some anxiety on his own part at the
dark outlook of the Protestants in the present crisis. The
answer encourages him in turn : —

TO JOHN, ELECTOR OF SAXONY, AT AUGSBURG

(Feste Coburg,) May 20, 1530.

Grace and peace in Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen. Most
Serene, Highborn Prince, most Gracious Lord ! I have delayed
answering your Grace's first letter from Augsburg, kindly written to
tell me the news and express your hope that time was not hanging
heavy on my hands. Truly your Grace need not worry about me in
the kindness of your heart, although I am anxious about you and
pray God for you. The time does not seem long to me ; I live like a
lord and the weeks scarcely seem three days to me. It is your Grace
who is really in the tedious place. . . .

Consider that God shows himself merciful to you in making the
Word fruitful in your Grace's land. Verily Electoral Saxony has
the greatest number and best ministers and preachers of all the world,
men who teach pure, true, and peaceable doctrine. Now the tender
youth of both sexes are growing up so well instructed in the Catechism
and in the Bible that it does my heart good to see how the boys and
girls can pray and believe and speak more of God and Christ than
formerly any religious foundation, cloister, or school could or yet can.
Such young people in your Grace's land are a fair paradise, the
like of which is not to be found in all the rest of the world. It is
planted by God in your Grace's land as a true sign of favor to you,
just as if he should say : " Well, dear Prince John, I commend to
you my most precious treasure, my pleasant paradise ; you shall be
father in it, for I put it under your protection and rule and give you
the honor of being my gardener and care-taker." ... It is just as if
God himself were your daily guest and ward, as he makes his gospel
and his children your guests and wards. On the other hand, consider
what terrible harm the other princes have done, and yet do to their
youth, making the paradise of God a sinful, worthless, foul slough

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 255

of Satan, destroying all and inviting the genuine old devil to be their
guest. . . .

May your Grace be pleased with my letter ; God knows I speak
the truth and do not flatter, for it is a sorrow to me that Satan can
still trouble and disturb your heart. I know him somewhat myself,
for he is accustomed to play with me. He is a gloomy, sour spirit who
cannot suffer a heart to be glad or have peace, and especially the
heart of your Grace, for he knows how much depends on you, not
only for us but for the world, and I can truly say for heaven itself.
. . . Wherefore we are bound loyally to pray for and encourage
your Grace, for if you are happy we live, if you are in trouble we
sicken. . . .

Your Grace's subject,

Martin Luther.

The Diet, though summoned to meet on April 8, did not
really open until June 20, a few days after the arrival of the
Emperor. Charles was now at the height of his power. The
earnest boy who had heard the heretic at Worms nine years
before had become a grave man of thirty. Though without
brilliant talents he had by persistence and application made
himself the most powerful monarch in Europe. He had repulsed
the Turk, he had sacked Kome, he had beaten France. The
fruits of the last victory, that of Pavia, in February, 1525, had
been torn from him, for the concessions made by Francis and*
ratified by an oath and a pledge of his knightly honor, were
forgotten as soon as the Pope, as the Lord's Vicar, absolved the
French King from his oath and made with him the " holy "
league of Cognac. By 1530 Charles had made peace again with
these two powers, a state of things from which some augured
ill for the Protestant cause. Luther, however, suspected, and
rightly, that the present peace was not much more stable than
the former one, as the following very witty letter to a magis-
trate in Wittenberg shows : —

TO CASPAR VON TEUTLEBEN AT WITTENBERG

The Wilderness, (Feste Cobubo,) June 19, 1530.
Grace and peace in Christ. Honorable, learned doctor and dear
friend ! I am heartily glad to hear that you and your dear Sophie are
well. I have no news for you from Augsburg, as our tongue-tied

256 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

friends there write me nothing, which pains me not a little. I know
your brother-in-law Nicolas von Amsdorf would be immoderately-
angry with them if he knew how reticent they were, especially at
this time. He shall yet be their judge.

I have learned from hearsay that Venice has sent the Emperor a
present of many hundred thousand gulden and that Florence offers
him five barrels of gold, but that the Emperor won't take anything
for the sake of the Pope, who has promised to stand by him with
body and estate, just as Francis once did with his "par mafoi " and
the Pope with his " in nomine Domini" and that there is a precious
holy league — all that we don't believe. But I have heard from Dr.
Martin Luther himself that he will forfeit an eye and an ear if
Venice, the Pope, and Francis turn true Emperor's men ; they are
three persons of one nature, namely, of an inconceivable wrath and
hatred against the Emperor with all hypocrisy, lies, and fraud, and
will remain so until they either go to the wall — may God help them to
it — or bring pious, noble young Charles to need. For my Lord Par-
ma-foi cannot forget the disgrace at Pavia; my Lord In-nomine-
Domini is first, a low Italian — which is too much — secondly, a
Florentine — which is worse — and third, the son of a harlot — which
is the devil himself, and moreover he is ill at ease over the sack of
Rome. Likewise the Venetians are nothing but Venetians, which is
enough said, and they excuse their wickedness by pretending to take
vengeance for Maximilian — all these things we firmly believe. But
God will help pious Charles, who is like a sheep among wolves.
Amen. Remember me to your dear Sophie. God bless you. Amen.

Martin Luther.

The silence of which Luther complains was at last broken by
Melanchthon, who wrote on June 13 begging him to write at
once to Philip of Hesse. This prince seemed likely to desert
the Lutheran for the Zwinglian party, and was accordingly
warned of the danger of doing so in the desired letter by the
head of the former faction. This epistle is mainly a long argu-
ment against the theological errors of the sacramentarians,
closing with the words, often turned against their writer by the
Romanists : —

O God ! it is no joke nor jest to teach new doctrine ! Darkness,
arbitrary opinion, and uncertain arguments must not move us to it, but
only clear, powerful texts, such as the Zwinglians have not yet found.

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 257

Truly I have suffered great pain and danger for the sake of my doc-
trine and hope it will not all be in vain. I do not oppose them from
hate or pride, for God knows I would long ago have adopted their
doctrine if they could only prove it. But I cannot satisfy my con-
science with their reasons.

When at last the Diet began to sit, on June 20, it decided to
take up the religious question first. Melanchthon, as the active
leader of the Protestants, had drawn up an official statement
of their doctrine to be presented to the Estates, the so-called
Augsburg Confession. This document had been submitted to
Luther and approved by him, but after this Melanchthon had
somewhat altered it, hoping to make its wording more accept-
able to the Catholics and to show that the Protestants were
the real defenders of the old faith against novel abuses. For
example, the article on the sacrament was put into language
which good Catholics could have subscribed to, had they not
known that declarations on transubstantiation and on the mass
as an offering had been intentionally omitted. Again, private
masses were gently deprecated instead of being described as a
horror in the style of the previous confession. In spite of these
concessions Melanchthon was fearful that they might not
satisfy his opponents, and when he wrote to Luther again on
June 20, he made gloomy prognostications as to the outlook
f ©r the cause, and complained bitterly of the cares which were
devouring him.

TO PHILIP MELANCHTHON AT AUGSBURG

The Wilderness (Feste Coburg), June 27, 1530.

Grace and peace in Christ — in Christ, I say, not in the world.
Amen. I shall write again, dear Philip, about the apology you make
for your silence. This courier has come unexpectedly and suddenly
from Wittenberg and is going to leave at once for Nuremberg, so I
must wait to write more fully for another post.

Those great cares by which you say you are consumed I vehemently
hate ; they rule your heart not on account of the greatness of the
cause but by reason of the greatness of your unbelief. John Huss and
many others have waged harder battles than we do. If our cause is
great, its author and champion is great also, for it is not ours. Why
are you therefore always tormenting yourself ? If our cause is false,

258 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

let us recant ; if it is true, why should we make him a liar who com.
mands us to be of untroubled heart ? Cast your burden on the Lord,
he says. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him with a
broken heart. Does he speak in vain or to beasts ? I, too, am quite
often smitten, but not all the time. It is not your theology which
makes you anxious, but your philosophy, the same which has been
gnawing at your friend Camerarius. What good can you do by your
vain anxiety ? What can the devil do more than slay us ? What after
that ? I beg you, so pugnacious in all else, fight against yourself, your
own worst enemy, who furnish Satan with arms against yourself.
Christ died once for sinners, and will not die again for truth and
justice, but will live and reign. If he be true, what fear is there for
the truth ? Will he be prostrated by God's wrath ? rather let us
prostrate ourselves before it. He who is our father will also be the
father of our children. I pray for you earnestly and am deeply pained
that you keep sucking up cares like a leech and thus rendering my
prayers vain. Christ knows whether it is stupidity or bravery, but
I am not much disturbed, rather of better courage than I had hoped.
God who is able to raise the dead is also able to uphold a falling
cause, or to raise a fallen one and make it strong. If we are not
worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will find others. If
we are not strengthened by his promises, to whom else in all the world
can they pertain ? But saying more would be pouring water into the
sea.

I forwarded your letters to Wittenberg, both that written before
and that written after the arrival of the Emperor. For at home they
are also troubled at your silence, as you will learn from Bugenhagen's
letter, though the fault of their not hearing from you is not, as Jonas
says, the messenger's, but yours, and yours alone. May Christ com-
fort, strengthen, and teach you by his spirit. Amen. If I hear that
things are going badly or that the cause is in danger, I shall hardly be
able to restrain myself from flying to Augsburg, to see what the Bible
calls the terrible teeth of Satan roundabout. I shall write again soon ;
in the mean time give my greetings to all my friends.

Martin Luther.

The Confession was read before the Diet, though only in a
secret session. Luther regarded this as a great triumph for the
cause, for which he alone had stood nine years before, as he
writes to a friend and ardent supporter : —

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 259

TO CONRAD CORDATUS AT ZWICKAU

The Wilderness, July 6, 1530.
. . . Jonas writes me that he was present during the session when
the Confession was read before the Diet and supported in a two-hour
oration by Dr. Beier, and that he will tell me later what he gathered
from the faces of the audience. . . . Our enemies certainly did their
best to prevent the Emperor allowing it to be read, and they did suc-
ceed in preventing its being read in the public hall before all the peo-
ple. But the Emperor heard it before the princes and estates of the
Empire. I am overjoyed to be living at this hour, when Christ is openly
confessed by so many in a great public assembly and with so good a
confession. ... Do not cease to pray for the good young Emperor,
worthy of the love of God and of men and for the not less excellent
elector who bears the cross and for Melanchthon who tortures himself
with care. . . -

The reading of the Confession was only the beginning of
negotiation, which, dragging along week after week, sorely tried
the patience and firmness of the Protestant minority. In these
dark days, when the sun was hidden and the way seemed lost,
Luther, though absent, the heart and soul of his party, encour-
aged and revived their fainting spirits. One of the most wonder-
ful letters he ever wrote is the following to the chancellor, or,
as we might say, prime minister of Electoral Saxony.

TO DR. GREGORY BRUCK AT AUGSBURG

The Wilderness, August 5, 1530.

... I have recently seen two miracles. The first was, that as I looked
out of my window, I saw the stars and the sky and the whole vault of
heaven, with no pillars to support it ; and yet the sky did not fall and
the vault remained fast. But there are some who want to see the pillars
and would like to clasp and feel them. And when they are unable to
do so they fidget and tremble as if the sky would certainly fall in,
simply because they cannot feel and see the pillars under it. If they
could only do this, they would be satisfied that the sky would remain
fast.

Again I saw great, thick clouds roll above us, so heavy that they
looked like great seas, and I saw no ground on which they could rest
nor any barrels to hold them and yet they fell not on us, but threatened

260 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

us and floated on. When they had passed by, the rainbow shone forth,
the rainbow which was the floor that held them up. It is such a weak
thin little floor and roof that it was almost lost in the clouds and looked
more like a ray coming through a stained glass window than like a
strong floor, so that it was as marvellous as the weight of the clouds.
For it actually happened that this seemingly frail shadow held up the
weight of water and protected us. But some people look at the thick-
ness of the clouds and the thinness of the ray and they fear and worry.
They would like to feel how strong the rainbow is, and when they can-
not do so they think the clouds will bring on another deluge.

I permit myself such pleasantries with your Honor, although I write
with earnest purpose. ... I hope we can keep the peace politically,
but God's thoughts are above our thoughts. ... If he should hear our
prayers now and grant us peace, perhaps it would turn out worse than
we hoped, and God would get less glory than the Emperor. ... I do
not mean to despise the Emperor, and only hope and pray that he may
do nothing against God and the imperial constitution. If, however, he
does this, we as faithful subjects are bound to believe that it is not the
Emperor himself who is so doing, but tyrannical advisers usurping his
authority, and we should make a distinction between the acts of our
sovereign and those of his wicked counsellors. . . .

While Luther was writing these lines bad news was on the
way. A Refutation of the Confession, prepared by his old enemy
Eck and others, was read before the Diet on August 3. Charles
refused to allow the Protestants a copy of this, which they
desired in order to frame a reply. Thereupon Philip of Hesse,
thinking all was over, suddenly and secretly left Augsburg,
August 6. Just a week before he had, in spite of Luther's warn-
ing to beware of the sacramentarians, entered into an alliance
with Zurich and Constance. The Wittenberg professor did not
hear of this for some time, and when he did judged the ambi-
tious chief severely for a step likely to bring on a war between
Lutherans and Swiss.

But negotiations were still continued by the Protestants who
stood fast and by a Catholic peace party headed by Albert of
Mayence. Crafty Eck had appointed a committee of six consist-
ing of himself, four other Catholics, and Melanchthon. The
one reformer in this body had not the stamina to withstand
a hostile majority and made such concessions on all points save

FESTE COBURG AND THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 261

marriage of the clergy, the dispensation of the sacrament in both
kinds and the abolition of private masses, that an agreement was
almost reached. It must be remembered, however, that when
articles of faith were expressed in purposely ambiguous terms
acceptable to both parties, the interpretation of these words was
diametrically opposite. In return for the Protestant agreement
to call the mass an offering, if the word were qualified with the
term commemorative, the Catholics conceded that communion
might be administered in both kinds if it were taught that this
was a matter of convenience and not of principle. One of the
most dangerous points yielded by Melanchthon was that the
bishops should be restored to their ancient jurisdictions, a meas-
ure justified by him as a blow to turbulent sectaries.

Negotiations continued, to the increasing prejudice of the
Protestants, throughout most of August and September. Me-
lanchthon, whose humanistic training gave him a broader out-
look than that of many of his contemporaries, animated by
a sincere love of peace, yielded on matters which to him
were indifferent, but to his co-religionists vital. Justus Jonas,
also a humanist by education, sided with him, but most of
the other Protestant leaders raised an outcry that he was a
greater enemy to the faith than any Catholic and appealed
over his head to Luther. The numerous letters written by him
to his friends at Augsburg, though they sometimes" show
perplexity as to what was actually being done, are consistently
and energetically opposed to all compromise. To Melanchthon
he wrote, August 26, that he was even sorry that Eck had told
such a lie as to say that he believed in justification by faith ;
communion in both kinds must be insisted on as necessary in all
cases, and there was great danger of civil war in restoring the
bishops to their old power. " In short, all treaty about harmon-
izing our doctrines displeases me, for I know it is impossible
unless the Pope will simply abolish the papacy." On September
20 he wrote : " If we yield a single one of their conditions, be
it that on the Canon or on private masses, we deny our whole
doctrine and confirm theirs. ... I would not yield an inch to
those proud men, seeing how they play upon our weakness.
... I am almost bursting with anger and indignation. Pray

262 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

break off all transactions at once and return hither. They have
our Confession and they have the Gospel ; if they wish let them
hear those witnesses, if not let them depart to their own place. If
war follows it will follow ; we have prayed and done enough."

Luther has often been blamed for his uncompromising spirit
and for his narrowness on this occasion. An age which has
ceased to regard many points then hotly disputed as vital or
even as interesting can hardly appreciate the opinion of a man
who made so much of them. Nevertheless, while Melanchthon's
conciliatory breadth is far more congenial to our modern spirit,
I believe that in this case Luther was right. The problem be-
fore a statesman is not what is the best possible policy in per-
fect conditions, but what is the best practical course to pursue
under given limitations. The question for the Protestants of
1530 was not what line might be safely followed in an enlight-
ened, tolerant age, but what measures were necessary, in the face
of an exigent and perilous situation. It was a plain fact that
however much they might juggle with words their differences
were far too fundamental to be composed by any treaty. Luther
saw this, Melanchthon did not.

The Catholics also saw it. Notwithstanding the immense con-
cessions wrung from their opponents, they voted, on September
22, that the Confession had been refuted and rejected, and that
consequently the Protestants were bound to recant. The Diet,
in this Recess, gave the heretics until April 15, while the Em-
peror was to use his influence with the Pope to call a general
council for the decision of still doubtful points ; after that re-
spite they were to be coerced.

Luther was deeply disappointed at this result. " I think the
Recess is worldly wisdom," he wrote on October 1, "but let us
believe that Christ is yet strong enough to rule all fools and
babblers who condemn him." A day or two later the whole
Saxon delegation returned to Coburg, which the Reformer left
on the fourth, arriving home on the thirteenth.

CHAPTEK XXIII

THE GERMAN BIBLE

Luther's greatest monument is the German Bible. The old
error of supposing that his was the first German version and
that before his time the book had been much neglected has
been often exposed ; yet it remains true that his translation, by
its superior scholarship and wonderful style, marks an era in
both religion and literature.

Begun at the Wartburg in the latter part of 1521, the work
was prosecuted with such energy that the New Testament was
completed by the time that Luther returned to Wittenberg in
March, 1522. It was published the following September in a
handsome quarto with woodcuts from Cranach's workshop, —
some of them after Diirer's famous Apocalypse series, — a de-
scription of the Holy Land by Melanchthon, marginal explan-
atory notes and introductions to the whole and to the separate
books by Luther.

Work on the Old Testament was begun at once with the
help of Melanchthon, Aurogallus, and Ebrer. The first part
appeared in the summer of 1523 and the second in December
of that year. Of the work taken up next, Luther writes, on
February 23, 1524, to Spalatin : —

We have so much trouble translating Job, on account of the grand-
eur of his sublime style, that he seems to be much more impatient of
our efforts to turn him into German than he was of the consolations
of his friends. Either he always wishes to sit upon his dunghill, or
else he is jealous of the translator who would share with him the
credit of writing his book.

The third part of the Old Testament, however, containing
this difficult book, appeared in September or October, 1524.
There still remained the Prophets, and labor on them had to
be postponed for some years by the controversies with Erasmus,

264 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

the Heavenly Prophets, and Zwingli. When they were taken
up again, in 1528, the Reformer wrote Wenzel Link, on June
14: —

I am now at work translating the Prophets. Good Heavens ! how
hard it is to make the Hebrew writers speak German ! They with-
stand our efforts, not wishing to give up their native tongue for a bar-
barous idiom, just as the nightingale would not change her sweet
song to imitate the cuckoo whose monotonous note she abhors.

In the same year Isaiah was finished, after which some por-
tions of the Apocrypha were taken up. At Feste Coburg the
Prophets were almost completed, though it was not until March
16, 1532, that the last portion of the Old Testament came out.
This was shortly followed by the Apocrypha. In 1539 a care-
ful revision was undertaken by a " Sanhedrim "• as Mathesius
calls it, consisting of Melanchthon the Grecian, Cruciger with
the Chaldean paraphrase, Bugenhagen skilful in the Latin ver-
sion, Jonas the rhetorician, Aurogallus professor of Hebrew,
Rorer the proof-reader, and Luther the president and inspiring
spirit of the whole. He took a legitimate pride in his own work,
of which he said : —

I do not wish to praise myself, but the work speaks for itself. The
German Bible is so good and precious that it surpasses all the Greek
and Latin versions, and more is found in it than in all the commenta-
ries, for we clear the sticks and stones out of the way that others may
read without hindrance.

In point of scholarship Luther's version was far superior to
all that had preceded it. They had been made from the Latin
Vulgate, adding to the errors of their original others of their
own. The basis of Luther's translation was the original tongues :
the Hebrew Massoretic text of the Old Testament published by
Gerson Ben Mosheh at Brescia in 1494 and the Greek New
Testament of Erasmus in the edition of 1519. Modern critics
have been able to improve on the work of Erasmus, nevertheless
his text was better than anything which had preceded it and was
in some points, as for example in omitting 1 John v, 7, superior
to that from which our King James version was made.

Other helps were of course much scantier than they are to-

THE GERMAN BIBLE 265

day. For example a diligent search failed to secure a map of
the Holy Land. Luther undoubtedly used the Latin and even
the older German versions as aids, though in no sense did he
copy them. The work was indeed done with astounding rapid-
ity, but the manuscripts show how carefully he polished and
revised, and the success of the work testifies to its excellence.

Luther's principles, indeed, were not strictly scientific, but
rather apologetic. The protocols laid down for the revision of
1539 indicate this, and so does the following saying of 1540 : —

Dr. Forster and Ziegler conferred with us about our version and
gave us much help. I gave them three rules : 1. The Bible speaks
and teaches of God's works, of this there is no doubt. But these works
are divided into three classes : the home, the State, and the Church. If
a saying does not fit the Church, let us place it in whichever of the
other classes it best suits. 2. When there is doubt about the words or
construction, we must choose the sense — saving the grammar — which
agrees with the New Testament. 3. If a sentence is repugnant to the
whole of Scripture, we must simply throw it away, for the rabbis
have corrupted the whole text with their notes, trying to make it
appear that the Messiah will come to give us meat and drink and after-
ward will die. That is a horror and we must simply throw it away. I
took many a questionable sentence to Forster ; if he said, " But the
rabbis understand it so and so," I replied, u But could you not write
the vowel points differently and construe so as to agree with the New
Testament? " In case his reply was affirmative I would say that it should
then be so construed. That sometimes surprised them, and they said
that they would not have thought of that sense their whole life long.

, Such a saying gives a rather unfavorable idea of the probable
accuracy of the version ; nevertheless as a matter of fact
Luther's scholarship was far sounder than that of his prede-
cessors. But it was less remarkable for this excellence than for
the superiority of its style. The English Bible has also become
a classic, but hardly attains the exalted position of the German
in this respect. Luther's influence, exerted chiefly through this
work, has been so enormous on the literature of his people that
it is sometimes said that he created the modern written language.
Other scholars are inclined to see in him rather the culmina-
tion of a literary activity which began some centuries before.

266 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

It is certain that there existed befere him a common German
apart from the numerous local dialects, spoken at the court
first of the Luxemburg and then of the Hapsburg emperors.1
Luther himself recognized this : —

I talk a common, standard German rather than a particular dialect,
and thus I can be understood in both Upper and Lower Germany.
I speak according to the usage of the Saxon chancery, the form used
by the German princes in addressing one another. Maximilian and
Frederic the Wise brought the whole Empire to a sort of common
speech by combining all the dialects in one.

Whatever may be thought of Luther's speech, whether he
merely gave currency to " the ugly dialect of the Luxemburg
emperors," or created a strong and flexible literary language,
it is certain that his writings were for a long time the standard
of good form and that they gave an immense impetus to Ger-
man thought.

His own principles, which conduced to great freedom of treat-
ment, are well set forth by himself : —

It is not possible to reproduce a foreign idiom in one's native
tongue. The proper method of translation is to seek a vocabulary
neither too free nor too literal, but to select the most fitting terms
according to the usage of the language adopted.

To translate properly is to render the spirit of a foreign language
into our own idiom. I do this with such care in translating Moses that
the Jews accuse me of rendering only the sense and not the precise
words. For example when the Hebrew says, " the mouth of the sword "
I translate "the edge of the sword,'' though in this case it might be
objected that the word " mouth " is a figurative allusion to preachers
who destroy by word of mouth.

I try to speak as men do in the market-place. Didactic, philosophic,
and sententious books are, therefore, hard to translate, but narrative
easy. In rendering Moses I make him so German that no one would
know that he was a Jew.

No Englishing of Luther's German can give any conception

1 It is interesting to compare the formation of the common dialect in Germany
and Italy. As Luther claims to speak the tongue of the cultivated introduced hy
the Emperor Maximilian (as he thinks), so Dante (De vulgari eloquio) states that
he wrote not the Tuscan dialect hut a common Italian, originating, as he believed,
at the court of Frederic II.

THE GERMAN BIBLE 267

of the peculiar flavor of his version, which, to be appreciated,
must be read in the original. One or two examples, however,
may serve to point out the extreme freedom of the rendering.
The word " church " (Kirche) is never used, but for it " con-
gregation " (Gemeinde), as more consistent with the original
idea. Again " Repent ye " (Matt, iii, 2; iv, 17 ; Mark i, 15) is
not " tut Busse " as in the older versions, but " bessert euch,"
" improve yourselves." In Romans iii, 28, " Therefore we con-
clude that a man is justified by faith without works of the law,"
Luther added "alone" after "faith," to bring out what he
believed to be the meaning of the apostle. He was violently
attacked for this alteration by his enemies, and defended him-
self in an angry Letter on Translation in 1530.

It is my testament and my translation [he bursts out] and if I have
made any mistakes (though I never falsified intentionally) I will not
let the papists judge me. . . . As to Romans iii, 28, if the word
" alone " is not found in the Latin or Greek texts, yet the passage has
that meaning and must be rendered so in order to make it clear and
strong in German.

Luther's attitude to the Bible contains one striking contra-
diction. He insisted that it should be taken as a whole and
literally as God's inerrant Word ; and at the same time he was
himself the freest of " higher critics." In his works against the
Heavenly Prophets (1524) and against Erasmus (1525) he
introduces long arguments to show that the Bible is consistent
and binding in the literal interpretation of each text. In a
work of 1530 he says : " Let no one think he can master the
articles of faith by reason. . . . What Christ says must be so
whether I or any other man can understand it." In his book
Against the Papacy at Rome (1545) he says : " This writer
would have done better to leave his reason at home or to
ground it on texts of Scripture, rather than ridiculously and
crazily to found faith and the divine law on mere reason."
These and many another saying lend substance to the charge,
often brought against Luther, of having merely substituted an<
infallible book for an infallible Church, or as a recent writer
has expressed it, " of having set up Bibliolatry in place of
ecclesiolatry."

268 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

But Luther was not the man to be bound by his own rule ;
few of his followers have ever interpreted, commented on, and
criticised the Bible with the freedom habitual to him. The
books he judged according as they appealed to his own subject-
ive nature, or according to his spiritual needs. He often exer-
cised his reason in determining the respective worth of the
several books of the Bible, and in a way which has been con-
firmed to a surprising degree by subsequent researches. He
denied the Mosaic authorship of part of the Pentateuch ; he
declared Job to be an allegory ; Jonah was so childish that he
was almost inclined to laugh at it ; the books of Kings were
" a thousand paces ahead of Chronicles and more to be be-
lie ved." " Ecclesiastes has neither boots nor spurs, but rides in
socks, as I did when I was in the cloister."

The Psalter was prized highly : " It should be dear to us,"
he said in his preface to it, " if only because it so clearly pro-
mises Christ's death and resurrection and prefigures his king-
dom with the estate and nature of all Christendom, so that it
may well be called a small Bible wherein all that stands in
Scripture is most fairly and briefly comprehended."

But we must not make Luther more in advance of his time
than he really was. He naively accepted all the miracles of the
Bible, as illustrated by the following : —

I would give the world to have the stories of the antediluvian
patriarchs also, that we might see how they lived, preached, and suf-
fered. ... I have taught and suffered, too, but only fifteen, twenty,
or thirty years ; they lived seven or eight hundred and how they must
have suffered !

Like freedom was used in judging the books of the New
Testament. In the preface of 1545 he says : " St. John's Gos-
pel and his first epistle, St. Paul's epistles, and especially
Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter's first epistle
are the books which teach all that is necessary for salvation,
even if you read no other books. In comparison with them,
James is a right straw epistle, for it has no evangelic manner
about it."

In the introduction to Romans (1522), he says : " This epis-

THE GERMAN BIBLE 269

tie is the kernel of the New Testament and the clearest of all
gospels, worthy and worth that a Christian man should not
only know the words by heart, but should converse with them
continually as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be too
much read nor considered, but the more if is used the more
precious it becomes." Then, by way of explaining the apostolic
use of such words as law, sin, grace, faith, justification, flesh,
and spirit, he gives an excellent summary of his own doctrine.

Kevelation he holds neither apostolic nor prophetic, for
Christ is neither taught nor recognized in it.

Again, when he was asked what were the best books of the
Bible, he said the Psalms, St. John's and St. Paul's epistles for
those who had to fight heretics, but for the common man and
young people the first three gospels.

The often quoted condemnation of James as an epistle of
straw is far better known than the more drastic things he said
about it to his table companions : —

Many sweat to reconcile St. Paul and St. James, as does Melanch-
thon in his Apology, but in vain. " Faith justifies and u faith does
not justify " contradict each other flatly. If any one can harmonize
them I will give him my doctor's hood and let him call me a fool.

Let us banish this epistle from the university, for it is worthless. It
has no syllable about Christ, not even naming him except once at
the beginning. I think it was written by some Jew who had heard
of the Christians but not joined them. James had learned that the
Christians insisted strongly on faith in Christ and so he said to him-
self : " Well, you must take issue with them and speak only of works,"
and so he does. He says not a word of the passion and resurrection
of Christ, the text of all the other apostles. Moreover, he has no order
nor method. He speaks now of clothes, now of wrath, jumping from
one topic to another. He has this simile : " For as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Mary, mother
of God ! He compares faith to the body when it should rather be
compared to the soul ! The ancients saw all this and did not consider
the epistle canonical.

Luther's marginal notes in one of his own Bibles are equally
trenchant. To James i, 6 (But let him ask in faith, nothing
wavering), he remarks : " That is the only good place in the

270 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER m

whole epistle" ; to i, 21 (Receive with meekness the engrafted
word), " Others engrafted it, not this James " ; to ii, 12 ff.,
" What a chaos ! " and to ii, 24 (Ye see then that by works
a man is justified, and not by faith only), " That is false."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG. 1532.

The Recess of Augsburg was published in an imperial edict
of November 19, 1530, declaring that the Emperor and Estates
had resolved to remain in the ancient communion, that the
Protestants must therefore renounce their errors before the
fifteenth of the following April, that the Emperor would use
his influence with the Pope for the calling of the general coun-
cil to which the final settlement of the religious difficulties was
referred, and that in the mean time the bishops should be re-
stored to their former jurisdictions and no further innovations
allowed. Shortly after promulgating the edict, Charles sum-
moned the imperial electors to meet at Cologne for the purpose
of making his brother Ferdinand King of the Romans — the
title regularly assumed by the Emperor's destined successor.
By this means he hoped to constitute a strong, permanent
authority in Germany from which he himself was generally
obliged to be absent.

To meet the exigencies of the situation thus presented, the
Protestant princes and delegates from the cities assembled at
Schmalkalden, a little town just outside the borders of Elect-
oral Saxony. Here, in December, 1530, they formed for mutual
help and protection an alliance, soon to become, under the
name of the League of Schmalkalden, one of the great powers
of Europe. They then debated what means should be used to
withstand the Emperor — legal or military. Some pressure
might be brought to bear upon the central government by con-
stitutional means ; an obvious opportunity to do so occurred in
the election of Ferdinand.

Writing to Luther for advice as to the proper course to pur-
sue, his sovereign received the following answer : —

272 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

TO JOHN THE STEADFAST, ELECTOR OF SAXONY, AT
SCHMALKALDEN

(Wittenberg,) December 12, 1530.

Grace and peace in Christ. Most serene, highborn Prince, most gra-
cious Lord ! My dear friend, Chancellor Briick, has spoken privately
to me, by your Grace's command, asking my opinion in the present
contingency, namely, the election of the King of the Romans, at
which the Emperor has asked your presence in your official capacity.
Although in my lowly station I cannot advise nor even know much
about such important affairs — for I have not the advantage of seeing
all things, as does your Grace, from the inside, but only from the out-
side and from afar — yet will I humbly give your Grace my thoughts.

I hope your Grace will not abandon your intention of taking part
in the election, for if you do, the enemy will find cause to take away
your vote. But if your Grace assists at this election, you will be
thereby confirmed in your vote and your fief, and their crafty strata-
gem to ruin your Grace will be frustrated. . . .

Let your Grace be assured that it is no sin to vote for a political
enemy of the Evangelic faith, for your Grace alone could not hinder
his election which would take place anyway, so that you will be
obliged, under any circumstances, to obey an Emperor who rejects
the Gospel. Moreover, it might happen that if your Grace were ab-
sent, your vote would be given to Duke George of Albertine Saxony
or to some one else. . . .

Your Grace must know that the Landgrave of Hesse has spontane-
ously caused himself to be inscribed a citizen of Zurich,1 which causes
me little pleasure ; for unless God help and protect us war must come
from that alliance. Your Grace knows that in such a war the Swiss
will protect the sacramentarian heresy, if not force it upon us, which
God forbid. For they have not yet recanted ; they fight not because
it is necessary but to uphold their error. O God ! in these worldly
matters I am too childish simple ! I pray and will pray God to guard
and guide your Grace as heretofore ; or, if worst comes to worst, that
he will give us his grace and a blessed end. Amen. Your Grace will
take my simple talk in good part. I speak as I understand. . . .

Your Grace's subject,

Martin Luther.

1 For the alliance of Hesse, Zurich, and Constance, formed July 30, 1530, see
above, p. 260.

THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG 273

The " simple talk " failed to convince John, who sent his
son, John Frederic, to protest against the election. As Luther
predicted, the action of Saxony did not prevent the choice of
Ferdinand by the six other princes (January 5, 1531), and it
was also made the excuse for a proposal to deprive the absent
member of his vote.

While advising against extra-legal means of resisting the
Catholics, Luther continued the warfare with his pen. The Re-
cess of Augsburg, together with the Refutation of the Protestant
Confession, was printed early in 1531. The Wittenberg pro-
fessor answered at once in two pamphlets : A Commentary on
the Putative Imperial Edict, and A Warning to his dear Ger-
mans. In the former he protests that he would not have what
he now says understood of the pious Emperor or against any
authority, but only against the wicked advisers who usurped
their lord's power. He refutes their refutation point by point,
and designates their claim to have conquered him by Scripture
as a plain lie. In the second pamphlet he recalls his Warning
to the Clergy at Augsburg, in which he had so heartily begged
for peace but they had despised his prayer. Now they accuse
him of sedition and rebellion. He defends the Protestants from
this charge, by making a distinction between those who resist
authority simply to become masters themselves and those who
merely defend their rights. The former is wrong, the latter
justifiable.

. These pamphlets were at once denounced by the Catholics as
seditious and libellous. Duke George especially sent a remon-
strance to his cousin John of Ernestine Saxony, who in turn re-
quested his subject to refrain from violence in future.
Luther replied with the following indignant protest : —

TO JOHN THE STEADFAST, ELECTOR OF SAXONY

(Wittenberg,) April 16, 1531.
Grace and peace in Christ. Most serene, highborn Prince, most gra-
cious Lord ! The esteemed and learned Dr. Gregory Bruck has sent
me your Grace's letter forbidding me to publish sharp or violent books,
of which I have recently written two with the purpose of preventing
injustice. . . .

274 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

First, I can show that in these two sharp books I have said nothing
turbulent nor incited any man to sedition ; this I will maintain against
every one, God willing.

Secondly, it is clear that in these books I have highly praised and
celebrated the Emperor ; in short I have proposed nothing except that
Christians should judge conscientiously and discover the bad practices
and abuses perpetrated in the Emperor's name, so that pious hearts
may remain untroubled and unseduced.

Thirdly, I think that your Grace should remember how your party
worked against the edict at Augsburg, thereby acting in a Christian,
upright way, letting every one know that you protested against it.

But yet they incontinently condemned our Confession, without letting
us have their Refutation to answer it, and they did not hear our prayers
for peace, but passed a menacing, atrocious, bloodthirsty, false edict,
thereby, if truth be spoken, drawing the sword against your Grace and
our party, and setting the whole Empire at odds — for one cannot
mince words in such matters. Moreover your Grace and our party
have kept silence for more than six months, showing abundant and
perilous patience without accomplishing anything thereby, for it has
only made our antagonists more proud, confident, and arbitrary ; where-
fore I was obliged to speak for fear they would not be checked until
they had ruined us. If your Grace and the other leaders of our party
wish to suffer in eternal silence, nevertheless I have not the patience,
especially as the cause is originally and chiefly mine. If I should fin-
ally acquiesce in this public condemnation of my teaching, it would be
tantamount to abandoning or denying it ; sooner than do this I would
incur the wrath of all the world and of all devils, not to mention his
Imperial Majesty's advisers.

Certain persons have represented to your Grace that my books are
sharp and vehement. This, indeed, is true, for I can write nothing on
this subject soft and mild. I am only sorry that what I write on this
subject is not still more cutting and violent, for compared to the sharp-
ness of their actions my speech is not sharp at all. It is no mild, gen-
tle act to publish such an edict against your Grace and your friends,
not allowing you to speak in your own defence, but drawing the sword
of wrath and trying to fill Germany with blood and with widows 'and
orphans.

When did the Catholics ever punish the scurrilous writings published
against us ? . . . Your Grace may see that these people think it right
and fine for a hundred thousand authors to write against us, every sheet
of whose voluminous works is full of poison and gall. . . . But if I,

THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG 275

poor man, alone cry out against these monsters, then no one has written
sharply but only Luther ! ... In short, whatever I do or say is wrong,
even if I should raise the dead ; whatever they do is right, even if they
should drench Germany with innocent blood ! Yet one must fight these
people with cotton wool, bow to them and say : " Gracious sirs, how
pious and fair you are ! " . . .

Your Grace's obedient subject,

Martin Luther.

The day set for the final recantation of the Protestants
— April 15, 1531 — passed without any attempt being made to
coerce them. On the contrary negotiations still continued and
a new diet was summoned to meet at Ratisbon in January,
1532. Luther had little hopes of any agreement ; as he wrote
Amsdorf on August 26, 1531 : —

Whether there will be a diet or not I cannot say. I know, however,
that whether there is one or not, agreement is impossible ; for who can
reconcile Christ and Belial, or how can the Pope concede that faith
alone justifies and that the works of popery are damnable, or how can
he withdraw and let Luther reign ?

The Estates met as appointed, but it was not here that nego-
tiations were carried on but at Nuremberg. The Catholics were
represented by the Electors of Mayence and of the Palatinate,
to whom Ferdinand delegated plenary powers, and the Protest-
ants by the Elector of Saxony. As a result of the conference
a treaty, known as the Religious Peace of Nuremberg, binding
each party to respect the faith of the other until an cecumenic
council should be called to decide all religious questions, was
signed by the delegates on July 23 and received the sanction of
the Emperor and Estates on August 2. The result was a diplo-
matic victory for the Lutherans, giving them time in which to
grow and for an indefinite period a recognized legal status in the
Empire.

The Elector John did not long live to enjoy the fruits of this
triumph. He died on August 16 and was buried in the Castle
Church at Wittenberg two days later. In officiating at the fu-
neral the Reformer wept unaffectedly for his departed sovereign.
On the day of the interment he spoke as follows at dinner : —

276 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

The bells sound differently when we know they ring for a dead
friend. ... In John we saw the greatest clemency, in Frederic the
greatest wisdom ; had the two princes been united it would have been
a miracle. . . . How great a prince has now died, and how lonely, for
no son, cousin, nor friend was with him. The physicians say that a con-
vulsion killed him.

Four days after this, Luther said to the new elector, John
Frederic, as they were dining together at Wittenberg : —

The death of a prince is a much more pitiful thing than that of a
peasant. A prince must be left by all his friends and nobles and at
last strive alone with the devil, for no one will remind him that he
has lived like a prince.

John Frederic the Magnanimous was twenty-nine when he
succeeded his father. Like Philip of Hesse he belonged to a gen-
eration more susceptible to the influence of the new teaching.
Brought up by Spalatin in a strongly Lutheran atmosphere, he
was a yet more ardent disciple of the Reformer than his father
had been. The Wittenberg professor at first had some doubts of
the youth : —

With the Elector Frederic, wisdom died, with the Elector John,
piety. Now the nobles will reign and piety will vanish. They know
that my young lord has a mind of his own and that he does not care
for learning, and that pleases them much. The nobles preach opinion
to him. Let them look to it that they do not put the land through
a sweat bath and then lay the people on the pavement to cool off. If
the Elector only had his uncle's wisdom and his father's piety I would
like also his insistence on having his own way and wish him success
with it.

In this case, however, familiarity bred respect, for Luther
came to have an increasingly high opinion of his prince. About
1540 he said : —

We certainly have a prince adorned with many gifts. He has a
reverend tongue and listens to no base or blasphemous word. He
loves the Bible, schools and churches ; he upholds a heavy weight and
alone keeps the faith. He would gladly attend to everything, but he
cannot. His only vice is that he drinks too much with his friends
and perhaps he also builds too much. But he works like a donkey.
If we did not pray earnestly for him we should not do right.

THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG 277

After the peace of Nuremberg languid negotiations looking
to a more definite settlement still continued. The main question
was the calling of a council. Pope Clement, who desired nothing
less than such an assembly, procrastinated. In June, 1533, am-
bassadors from him and the Emperor came to treat with John
Frederic on the subject. The Elector took them to Wittenberg
to consult Luther. A letter from the latter to an old friend
partly explains why the conference was futile : —

TO NICHOLAS HAUSMANN AT DESSAU

(Wittenberg,) June 16, 1533.
Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Nicholas, I have not leisure to
write at length on account of the presence of the Most Illustrious
Elector, before whom I daily preach, and with whom I have to confer
on the answer to be given to the papal and imperial ambassadors.
The Pope has sent them to propose to us certain articles about calling
a council, in which he intends that all shall be done according to his
pleasure ; that is, that we should be condemned and burned ; but
he conceals his purpose with slippery words worthy of himself. We
shall return an answer worthy both of himself and of ourselves.
They are rascals to the core and will remain so. The ambassa-
dors are treated most honorably, not on account of the Pope but
on account of the Emperor, whose name we reverence while despis-
ing that of the Pope. The ambassadors have spoken to neither
me nor to Melanchthon nor to any of our theologians. Why indeed
should the servants of our despoilers and murderers hear us? More
at another time. At present farewell in the Lord and pray for me.

Dr. Martin Luther.

What could not be obtained by peaceful means was some-
times wrested by force. Of the numerous gains made by the
Protestants in the early thirties, the most important was the
conquest of Wurttemberg by Philip of Hesse in May, 1534. The
tyrannical Duke Ulrich had been expropriated some fifteen years
previous by the Swabian League and the territory given by the
new emperor to his brother Ferdinand. After many unsuccess-
ful attempts to reconquer his dominions, Ulrich at last found an
opportunity, by embracing the Protestant religion, to secure
the military support of their ablest statesman. The campaign
was, however, undertaken contrary to the advice of the reformers,

278 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

true to their pacific principles. Their meeting with Philip at
Weimar, in January, 1533, as well as the result of the cam-
paign, is described by Luther in a saying recorded some seven
years later : —

Philip of Hesse undertakes much and accomplishes much. Great was
his audacity to oppose the bishops,1 but greater to restore the Duke
of Wtirttemberg and expel Ferdinand. Melanchthon and I dissuaded
him from doing this with all our powers at Weimar, thinking that he
would bring shame on the Evangelic cause and disturb the peace.
He got all hot and red, though he is usually pale. ... So he kept on
and did what he said he would and fired three hundred and fifty shots
into the city and castle 2 and waited for an answer at Cadan. Duke
George said to Ferdinand : " If you could only raise an army in two
or three days, I would not advise peace, but as you can't you must
come to terms."

1 Of Bamberg and Wiirzburg at the time of the Pack affair, 1528. Cf. sttpra,
p. 224.

2 Asperg, June 1 and 2, 1534.

CHAPTER XXV

THE CHURCH MILITANT

The philosopher, says a great historian, may indulge in the
pleasing task of portraying Religion as she descended white-
robed from Heaven ; it is the melancholy duty of the historian
to show how she has been maltreated by men, and her immacu-
late garments torn and spotted by human passion. The early
annals of the Protestant, as of the Apostolic Church, are full of
difficulty and dissension. After the peace of Nuremberg had
given the Protestants a firm position against the Roman Catho-
lics, the main energies of the reformers were applied to fighting
each other and dealing with the numerous contrarieties which
arose in their own folds.

A main problem with all associations as with all individuals
is the financial one. This chronic difficulty is thus spoken of
in a letter from Luther to John Sutel of Gottingen, March 1,
1531: —

I see your friends are worried for fear they will have to pay their
ministers a little more. . . . Formerly the people gave thousands of
guldens to every impostor that came along, whereas now they won't
give any man a hundred. Let them go to. It is better for them to serve
the Pope and be subject to the devil than to lord it over Christ and
trample on his Word. Many such cases come up elsewhere, but the
Lord knows his own. They imagine that we must flatter them and
could not do without them. This is not to seek the gospel earnestly.

About the time that Luther was writing this discouraged
note a perfect tempest was brewing at Zwickau — a tempest in
a teapot, to be sure, but one which occupies more space in the
Reformer's correspondence and table-talk, than do the Diet of
"Worms and the Peasants' Revolt put together. The cause
of the disturbance was the expulsion of a clergyman, Lawrence
Soranus, early in 1531, by the town council. The accused se-

280 THE . LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

cured the interest of the government and of Luther, who wrote
the following vigorous letter to one of the principal citizens : —

TO STEPHEN ROTH AT ZWICKAU

(Wittenberg), March 4, 1531.
Grace and peace in the Lord. Among many sorrows undergone in
the ministry of God's Word, I feel keenly, my dear Stephen, that you
and your fellow citizens show such overbearing contempt for God and
his ministers. You have cast out Lawrence Soranus with ignominy,
branded with a public punishment, though not convicted of crime nor
even heard in his own defence, and every one cries out that you, Roth,
were the author and perpetrator of this crime. Excuse yourself as
much as you like, you will never clear yourself of this arbitrary, or
rather presumptuous act, done without the knowledge and consent of
your excellent pastor Hausmann, who had every right to know and
participate in the proceedings. Do you really think, my dear young
fellows, that you can domineer in the Church, appropriate and steal
revenues which you have not given, and can distribute them to whom
you wish as if you were lords over the Church ? I am minded to write
a book to humble you and those beasts of Zwickau and to make a pub-
lic example of your iniquity, as the Lord lives. This is the thanks that
you give us, friends, for our sweat and agony in the service of God's
Word. I wish you and yours excluded from the communion of my
Lord Jesus Christ so that you and all may see how safe you are in
your pride. May the Lord Jesus confound the undertakings of you all.
Amen. Martin Luther.

Roth and the town council replied, standing by their former
action, and expressing surprise at Luther's hasty judgment.
The other local preachers, Hausmann and Cordatus, encouraged
by support from headquarters, took the part of Soranus, and
the quarrel soon made their position as untenable as his. Cor-
datus, a man of passionate temper, was the first to be obliged
to go. He would have preferred to stay even at some personal
risk, but his chief, more gentle in deed than in word, advised
him " to leave that Babylon and give place to wrath." Cordatus
accordingly came to Wittenberg, where he was for ten months
the guest of the Black Cloister, during which time he made a
collection of his host's table-talk, naturally recording the many
violent denunciations of " that cursed, recalcitrant city."

THE CHURCH MILITANT 281

In hopes of composing the quarrel a meeting was arranged
between Luther, Jonas, Hausmann, and Cordatus, and some
representatives of Zwickau, headed by the burgomaster Miihl-
pfort, to whom in happier times the Reformer had dedicated his
work on the Liberty of a Christian Man. As the altercation
waxed hot, Miihlpfort said, " Doctor, you will never bring us
under another Pope : we have learned too much for that " ; to
which Luther replied, " Is it not a curse on me that I have
made others so learned and yet know nothing myself ? "

The attempt came to nothing, and Hausmann was eventually
forced to follow Cordatus. On November 22 his leader invited
him thus : —

I write again to beg you for Christ's sake to come to me as soon as
possible. There is a little new room waiting for you. Think not that
you will be a burden to me, but rather a support and a solace.

Hausmann accepted the invitation. In the autumn of 1532
he found employment as court preacher to the princes of Anhalt
at Dessau, and in 1538 accepted a call to his native town Frei-
berg. His death on October 17 of that year was a great blow to
Luther, who burst into tears upon hearing of it.

Before the storm at Zwickau had been laid, another dissension
arose at Nuremberg. Osiander, a reformed priest who had
taken a prominent part in the Diet held here in 1523, endeavored,
about ten years later, to abolish the practice of private con-
fession. The stricter party, headed by Link, opposed this step,
referred the question to Wittenberg, and received an answer,
dated April 18, 1533, from Luther and Melanchthon, to the
effect that public and private confession might well be contin-
ued at the same time. Osiander refused to bow to the decision,
and for a long time harbored resentment against the other
clergymen. Luther treated the matter in a large and conciliatory
spirit, writing Link on October 8 : —

I pray you for Christ's sake not to close the eyes of mercy, but
consider how far the man is captured and sick with his own opinion,
and therefore try not to confound or condemn him publicly, lest from
this spark a conflagration should arise. Endeavor rather to free and

282 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

heal him by the exercise of moderation, patience, and prudence, study-
ing only how to profit his soul.

The threatened breach happily yielded to this gentle treat-
ment, and Luther was able to write Osiander an affectionate
letter styling him the true partner of his faith.1

Far different was the result of another schism, which tore
the very heart of the Evangelic Church before it was quelled.
The leader of the Antinomian heresy — so the new sect was
denominated — was John Agricola, a native of Eisleben, about
ten years younger than his great compatriot. His ambition was
not satisfied, with the humble position of village schoolmaster,
and he several times brought himself into prominence, notably
by an attack on Melanchthon during the church visitation of
1527. His abilities and his personal friendship for Luther
moved the latter to nominate him for a position in the univers-
ity. During the Reformer's absence at Schmalkalden in the
early part of 1537, Agricola and his family were guests at the
Black Cloister, while he assisted in supplying the vacancy caused
by his host's absence, taking some of the professorial and pas-
toral duties.

It was now first noticed that his theology was not free from
the taint of false doctrine ; he was accused of teaching justifica-
tion by faith to the disparagement of morality, asserting, it was
charged, that as long as a believer was in a state of grace it
made little difference what he did or what sins he might com-
mit. On his return Luther felt obliged to preach against this
doctrine, and the Elector prohibited Agricola from the pulpit.
In December the Reformer issued a series of propositions, con-
taining the gist of the Antinomian doctrine, intending to de-
bate them with its leader. The man against whom they were
directed declined the challenge, and, in January, 1538, gave
such quieting assurances that he was again allowed to preach.
Hardly had he been forgiven, however, before he gave new
offence. He issued a stronger statement of his previous posi-
tion, defending it by quotations from the Reformer's own works.
Luther was irritated both by the contents and the manner of
the apology ; he saw that Agricola's doctrine was dangerous to
1 June 3, 1545. Burkhardt : Luther"1 $ Brief wechsel.

THE CHURCH MILITANT 283

morality and proposed to suppress it whether supported by
former expressions of his own or not. He accordingly issued
a pamphlet against the Antinomians early in 1539, to which
Agricola promptly responded with a list of rather enigmatical
theses, thus explained by one . of the reporters of the table-
talk : —

January 31, 1539, Dr. Martin Luther read Agricola's propositions
for debate. They were all about Jonathan and Saul. ... At last he
understood the deceit of Agricola, who played with allegories and
double meanings, and yet exposed himself in all his thoughts. . . .
His meaning was that Jonathan was himself, who ate honey, that is,
preached the gospel, but that Saul was Luther, who forbade the use
of this honey in the Church. When the doctor had at last fathomed
this meaning he exclaimed : " O Agricola, are you such a man ? May
God forgive you for being so bitter and thinking that I am your
enemy. God is witness that I loved you and yet do. Why don't you
come out openly and not fight so treacherously ? "

During the long controversy the poison had spread to other
parts. When Melanchthon went to the Congress of Frankfort
in February, 1539, he wrote accounts of other Antinomians
who had made themselves known. At the same time Luther
heard that the heresy was being taught at Saalfeld and other
places, as he wrote his friend on March 2. On the same day,
probably, he said : —

Satan, like a furious harlot, rages in the Antinomians, as Melanch-
thon writes from Frankfort. The devil will do much harm through
them and cause infinite and vexatious evils. If they carry their law-
less principles into the State as well as the Church, the magistrate will
say : I am a Christian, therefore the law does not pertain to me.
Even a Christian hangman would repudiate the law. If they teach
only free grace, infinite licence will follow and all discipline will be
at an end.

The strain between the two protagonists at Wittenberg con-
tinued without coming to an open breach. Indeed, sundry
attempts were made to bring about a reconciliation, and on one
occasion, apparently in January or February, 1540,1 Luther

1 The date is doubtful. The story was noted by one of the guests, Spangen-
berg of Nordhausen, in his Bible, and taken from him by Aurifaber into his col-

284 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

invited his opponent with other theologians to a banquet at his
house.

When they had eaten and made merry Dr. Martin Luther took a
glass which had three rings around it marking divisions. Pledging his
guests in this he said to Agricola : " Friend Agricola, note this glass ;
the first division is the Ten Commandments, the second the Creed,
the third the Lord's Prayer ; the glass itself which contains them is
the Catechism." Then he drank all the wine in the glass, and filling
it again gave it to Agricola. But he could only drink the upper
division, nay, he was obliged to set the glass down and could not bear
even to look at it again. Then said Luther : " I knew well that Agri-
cola could drink the Ten Commandments, but that he would leave the
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Catechism alone."

In March Agricola laid a complaint against Luther before
the Elector, saying that he had been trampled on for three
years by his enemy and had never taught the doctrine of which
he was accused. Before the committee of theologians appointed
to investigate the merits of the case had come to a conclusion,
Agricola had the opportunity to leave Wittenberg to accept
a position in Brandenburg. He eagerly embraced this offer, in
June, 1540. Even here, however, he found that the friendship of
the Wittenbergers was desirable.

Luther, however, steadily refused to forgive him unless he
recanted in the following formula : " I was a fool and wronged
the Wittenberg divines ; they teach aright and I wronged them
much. I repent from my heart and beg for God's sake that
they will forgive me." The breach was therefore never healed.
The Antinomian played in the religious history of the time
a chequered part which gave some color to Luther's designation
of him as a chameleon.

The most important follower of the Antinomian was James
Schenk of Freiberg. Notwithstanding some complaints against
him he was called to be court preacher to the Elector in July,
1538. While on a visit to Lochau, September 10 and 11,
Luther heard Schenk preach and afterwards invited him to a

lection of table-talk (Forstemann-Bindseil, ii, 144) where the date 1540 is given.
Many of the dates in Aurifaber are incorrect, but if this is right it seems likely
that the banquet took place before Agricola 's complaint to the Elector in March.

THE CHURCH MILITANT 285

meal for the purpose of coming to an understanding. Schenk,
when accused of teaching false doctrine, said : " I must speak
as I do for the sake of Christ's blood and precious passion ; the
great pain of my conscience forces me to it. ... I have a God
as well as you." After some vain expostulation Luther replied :
"If you are so badly torn the devil must mend you. Poor
Freiberg will never get over it, but God will destroy him who
has violated the temple. The proverb says * Bad mind, bad
heart.' A desperate bad fellow." To this Schenk only retorted :
" If I make the court as pious as you have made the world, it
will be all up."

He soon lost his position with the orthodox sovereign, and,
failing to find another, wandered around for some years in deep
poverty, until, about 1545, he died, apparently either of starv-
ation or by his own hand. On Luther, who in his later years
occasionally spoke of " Grickel and Jackel " (Agricola and
James Schenk) as lost men, the unhappy altercation left an
abiding and melancholy impression.

Other fierce, if petty, quarrels broke out in Luther's im-
mediate circle. By a bit of dramatic irony the centre of these
storms was the peace-loving Melanchthon. This highly gifted
teacher and writer by his very wish to please all men laid
himself open to the charge of holding the faith and the in-
terests of his Church too lightly. While Luther was absent
at the Wartburg, the fatal weakness of Philip's character had
been revealed in his dealings with the Zwickau prophets. A
few years later he had been attacked by Agricola for his sup-
posed backsliding to Catholicism. In 1530 at Augsburg he
had drawn down upon himself the cutting animadversions of
more resolute if less talented Protestants by his concessions
to the enemy. In 1536 again Cordatus scented heresy in
Melanchthon's teaching. The quarrel was suspended during the
absence and illness of Luther at Schmalkalden, but later was
renewed with greater violence, Cordatus calling his younger
but more noted antagonist " a crab crawling on the cross."
James Schenk, too, of Antinomian notoriety, in his orthodox
days attacked Melanchthon with almost equal fierceness.

At times it seemed as if the relations of the two leading

286 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

reformers of Wittenberg would become strained. Luther took
very ill the approaches made by Melanchthon to his opponents,
whether papist or sacramentarian. He was angry when, in
return for a good sum of money, his friend dedicated a book
to Albert of Mayence ; he disliked the action of his colleague^
and of Bucer when, in the reformation at Cologne, they
seemed to slur over the doctrine of the sacrament for the sake
of unity.

On the other side, too, the younger man often felt the influ-
ence of his older friend dictatorial and overbearing. Once or
twice it seemed that he tried to free himself from it, but always
anxiously avoided an open quarrel. His wife, moreover, was
jealous of Katie, for according to the rule of academic etiquette,
the doctor's wife preceded the master's.

But fortunately the mutual strain never came to an open
breach. The pair had too much respect and affection to allow
that. Luther was greatly impressed by his friend's intellectual
excellence and splendid services to the common cause. Not
only in his writings but by his active participation in politics,
Melanchthon did a great deal for the Protestant cause. After
the Diet of Augsburg he was the most active, though not the
most powerful, theologian of the reformed faith. He was almost
always present at the diets and conferences from which Luther
was kept by his health, and it was Melanchthon rather than
his friend who was invited by the kings of France and England
to visit their capitals. Katie may have felt some jealousy now
and then, but her magnanimous husband was never tired of
celebrating his friend. Among many testimonies of his affec-
tion and respect, the following are important.

August 1, 1537, Luther wrote on his table : —

Deeds and words, Melanchthon,
Words without deeds, Erasmus,
Deeds without words, Luther,
Neither words nor deeds, Carlstadt.

While he was writing, Melanchthon and Basil Monner entered
by chance. Melanchthon said that Luther had spoken truly of
Erasmus and Carlstadt, but that he had spoken too highly
of him and that Luther also had words.

THE CHURCH MILITANT 287

No one has done so much as Melanchthon in logic in a thousand
years. I knew the rules before, but Philip has taught me the thing
itself.

The little man is pious ; when he does wrong it is not with malice
prepense. In his way he has accomplished much, but he has often
been unfortunate in the dedications of his books.1 To judge by results
I should say that my way was the better, to speak out and hit like
a boy. Blunt wedges rive hard knots.2

1 Melanchthon had dedicated works to Albert of Mayence and Henry "VTH.

2 Malo nodo malus cuneus, a proverb several times quoted by Luther. My rend*
ering is borrowed from Troilus and Cressida.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE WITTENBERG AGREEMENT. 1536

A PREVIOUS chapter x has traced the history of the schism
of the two great reformed Churches as far as the unsuccessful
attempt to reconcile them at the Marburg colloquy of October,
1529. To the Diet of Augsburg in the following year Zwingli
sent a confession of faith in which he designated the Lutherans
as men who longed after the flesh pots of the old Egypt. Still
another confession, more irenic in tone, was brought by the
German Zwinglians. Their representative, Martin Bucer of
Strassburg, since 1518 a friend and admirer of the Wittenberg
reformer, visited Feste Coburg in hopes of bringing about a
union. He succeeded in convincing Luther of the good inten-
tions of the South German cities, and, wishing to push his
advantage, sent to him, not long after the close of the Diet,
a very conciliatory creed, for which he received the following
acknowledgment : —

TO MARTIN BUCER AT STRASSBURG

Wittenberg, January 22, 1531.

Grace and peace in Christ. I have received the confession sent by
you, dear Bucer ; I approve it and thank God that we are united in
confessing, as you write, that the body and blood of the Lord is truly
in the supper, and is dispensed by the consecrating words as food for
the soul. I am surprised that you say that Zwingli and GEcolampa-
dius believe this too, but I speak not to them but to you. [Here fol-
lows an exposition of the minute differences in the belief of Luther
and of Bucer.]

I cannot, therefore, admit a full, solid peace with you without vio-
lating my conscience, for did I make peace on these terms I should
only sow the seeds of far greater theological disagreement and more
atrocious discord between us in future. . . . Let us rather bear a little

1 Chapter xxi

THE WITTENBERG AGREEMENT 289

discord with an imperfect peace, than, by trying to cure this, create
a more tragic schism and tumult. Please believe what I told you at
Coburg, that I would like to heal this breach between us at the cost of
my life three times over, for I see how needful is your fellowship to
us and what damage our disunion has done the gospel. I am certain
that, were we but united, all the gates of hell and all the papacy and
all the Turks and all the world and all the flesh and whatever evil
there is could not hurt us. Please impute it not to obstinacy but to
conscience that I decline the union you propose. After our conference
at Coburg I had high hopes, but as yet they have not proved well
founded. May the Lord Jesus illumine us and make us more perfectly
at one. . . .

How insistent Luther was that all with whom he claimed
Christian fellowship should believe exactly as he did, and how
sensitive he was lest it be thought that he had changed an iota
of his opinion, is set forth in a letter to John Frosch, a minister
of Augsburg, dated March 28, 1531 : —

I have heard of the boasting of your Zwinglians that peace is made
between us and that we have gone over entirely to your opinion. But,
my dear Frosch, you must know that we have yielded nothing. Mar-
tin Bucer, indeed, seems to be thoroughly convinced that we believe
and teach the same doctrine, and of him personally I therefore enter-
tain some hopes. Of the others I know nothing certain, but if they
desire peace I should wish to indulge them little by little, tolerating
their opinion for a time while holding fast to our own as heretofore.
This much charity demands.

Luther not only condemned the Swiss theology, but he enter-
tained a deep, and as it proved, a well-founded distrust of the
political aspirations of their leader. From the alliance of Hesse,
Zurich, and Constance 1 he predicted disaster.

His gloomy prognostications were strikingly confirmed by
the battle of Cappel, October 11, 1531, in which the Protestant
cantons were defeated by the Catholic ; Zwingli lost his life
and the Swiss allies of Hesse were rendered powerless. As in
the destruction of Miinzer and the prophets six years before,
the radical wing of the Protestant party was cut off and the
leadership left to the conservative Lutheran branch. The Re-

1 See letter to Elector John, December 12, 1530, p. 272.

290 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

former regarded both events as providential judgments on
error. Far from being moved by the heroic death of his rival,
he was, if possible, more confirmed than ever in his unfavor-
able estimate of his opinions and character. When he first
heard of Cappel, he exclaimed : —

God knows the counsels of the heart, and it is therefore a good
thing that Zwingli, Carlstadt, and Pellican lie prostrate, for other-
wise we could not have withstood them and Strassburg and Hesse
altogether. What a triumph for us it is that they have thus stultified
themselves !

Again, when he learned of the death of CEcolampadius,
which followed a few weeks later, he said : —

Erasmus, CEcolampadius, Zwingli, and Carlstadt all relied on their
own wisdom and were therefore confounded. But I know that God
knows more than I do and I thank him for it. . . . Who would
have believed ten years ago that we should have been so successful ?

Kegarding the heresy of Zwingli as so poisonous, Luther
naturally continued to combat it vigorously. Not long after his
rival's death he wrote a letter to one of the earliest converts to
his faith, expressing his views with a freedom deeply resented
by the Swiss. The unkindest cut was the juxtaposition of the
name they revered with those of the ranters, for Luther ob-
stinately persisted in confounding them : —

TO DUKE ALBERT OF PRUSSIA

(Wittenberg, February or beginning of March, 1532.)
Grace and peace in Christ our Lord and Saviour. Serene, highborn
Prince. I have received your Grace's letter on the sacrament and the
sixth chapter of John. [Here follows a long exposition of this and
other pertinent texts.]

Such counsel of the Holy Ghost we must not despise, nor turn our-
selves to others' boasting, but avoid them. He who has counselled us
will turn their boasting to shame, as he has already begun to do. For
we saw what he did to Mtinzer and his company, making them a hor-
rible example to all ranters. For they boasted of the spirit and de-
spised the sacrament, but they found out thoroughly what kind of a
spirit it was. In like manner God has chased Carlstadt to and fro
ever since he began his game and has left him no country for his

THE WITTENBERG AGREEMENT 291

body and no rest for his heart, but has made him a true Cain, branded
and cursed with fear and trembling. And recently God has notably
punished the poor people of Switzerland, Zwingli and his followers,
for they were hardened and perverted, condemned of themselves, as
St. Paul says. They will all experience the same.

Although neither Munzerites nor Zwinglians will admit that they
are punished by God, but give out that they are martyrs, neverthe-
less we, who know that they have gravely erred in the sacrament and
other articles, recognize God's punishment and beware of it ourselves.
Not that we rejoice in their misfortune, which is and always has been
a sorrow to our hearts, but we cannot let the witness of God pass
unnoticed. We hope from the bottom of our hearts that they are
sayed, as it is not impossible for God to convert a man in a moment
at his death ; but to call them martyrs implies that they died for a
certain divine faith, which they did not. We do not send criminals
whom we execute to hell, but we do not for that reason make martyrs
of them.

It astonishes me that the surviving Munzerites and Zwinglians do
not become converted by the rod of God; they not only remain
hardened in their former error, but give out that they are mar-
tyrs. . . .

It is true that the victory of the Catholic Swiss over Zwingli is not
at all happy, nor does it win the victors great glory, inasmuch as they
let the Zwinglian faith (as they call it) stand undisturbed by their
treaty, and do not condemn this error, but let it pass, as they say,
along with the rest of their old, indubitable faith ; this, perhaps, will
only confirm the sacramentarians. W7e must believe that this is a
chastisement of God, of which they cannot boast, for by it he has
closed their mouths against their enemies and all godless papists, and
has given the latter cause to boast, which I fear will finally bring down
a judgment of God on both parties. . . .

Wherefore I warn your Grace, and beg that you will avoid such peo-
ple and not suffer them in your land. Your Grace must think that if you
tolerate such ranters in your dominions when you can prevent it, you
will terribly burden your conscience, so that perhaps you can never
quiet it again ; you would be troubled not only for the sake of your
soul, which would be damned thereby, but for the sake of the whole
Christian Church, for if you allow any to teach against the long and
unanimously held doctrine of the Church when you can prevent it, it
. may well be called an unbearable burden to conscience. I should
rather have not only all ranters, but all powerful, wise emperors,

292 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

kings, and princes testify against me than let one jot of the holy-
Christian Church hear or see anything against me. For we must not
trifle with the articles of faith so long and unanimously held by
Christendom, as we can with papal or imperial law or the human
traditions of the fathers and the councils.

This is my brief, humble, and Christian answer to your Grace. May
Christ our Saviour richly enlighten and strengthen you to believe and
act according to his holy Word. Amen.

Your Grace's devoted

Martin Luther.

Some months after writing the above missive Luther ex-
pressed himself as to the probability of his enemies, salvation
as follows : —

It is much better and easier to pronounce Zwingli and CEcolampa-
dius damned than saved, even if they did die for their faith. It is
profitable to do this to deter others, both those now living and posterity,
from their errors, for to call them saints and martyrs hurts many and
confirms the sectaries in their opinions.

Zwingli took the sword and received his reward, for Christ says :
Whoso draweth the sword shall perish by the sword. If God has
saved his soul he has done it extra regulam.

The blow to Protestantism in Switzerland made it all the
more advisable that German Lutherans and Zwinglians should
unite, and the danger of saeramentarian leadership being averted
removed the obstacle to doing so on the part of Wittenberg.
Philip of Hesse was again the mediator. Judging that better
results would follow from a conference at which Luther was
not present, he invited Melanchthon to meet Bucer at Cassel in
December 1534, to discuss terms of agreement. Fearing that his
friend would yield too much, Luther sent with him a written
statement of his opinion in the strongest form, namely, that the
body of the Lord was bitten by the teeth of the communicant.
The meeting was, however, successful ; Bucer admitted the ab-
sent reformer's contentions in such away as to convince the lattei
that the Church of Upper Germany, at least, was on the right
road. Thus he wrote to Philip of Hesse, January 30, 1535 : —

I have now arrived at the point, thank God, where I can confidently
hope that the ministers of Upper Germany heartily and earnestly be-

THE WITTENBERG AGREEMENT 293

lieve what they say. But inasmuch as neither side has completely as-
certained the opinion of the other, it seems to me that we have done
enough for the present until God helps us to a real, thorough union.
A long standing and deep difference cannot come to an end suddenly.

Nevertheless he wrote to Gerbel ! November 27, 1535 : —

What more joyful could happen to me, now that I have discharged
the duties of life, used up with labor and sorrow and overtaken with
old age, than that before my death I should see an unexpected peace ?
... I say this that you may not doubt that I am heartily desirous of
an agreement whatever may seem to interfere with one. If you will
mediate I am willing to do and suffer all. I wish to be found a faith-
ful servant of Christ in the Church even if I am not a very wise one.

With such a spirit of eagerness on one side and of willing-
ness on the other, it was natural that a still closer approach to
unity should be made. Free correspondence between the leaders
of both parties impressed on them the belief that all that was
needed for perfect mutual understanding was a personal inter-
view. The Upper Germans appealed to Luther to fix the time
and place for such an assembly and he in turn consulted the
Elector in a letter of January 25, 1536 : —

The ministers of Strassburg and Augsburg are anxious for a meet-
ing, for having thoroughly canvassed the subject, we are convinced
that nothing remains but to draw up an agreement. There is no need,
as they themselves acknowledge, of a great concourse, among whom
some might be restless and recalcitrant and thus spoil our peaceful in-
tentions. I therefore humbly beg your Grace to state what city would
be best.

The Elector at first assigned Eisenach as the place of meeting,
but this was later changed, on account of Luther's health, to
"Wittenberg. A small number of the leading clergy of Upper
Germany arrived on May 21, and the next day the conference
began at the Black Cloister. After a week's deliberation Luther
was finally convinced that the men present believed and taught
the orthodox doctrine of the sacrament, namely, that the body
and blood are really present in the elements of the eucharist.
When he announced that he regarded them all as brothers
1 Enders, xi, 12C. On dating, see note, ibid. 128.

294 THE LIFE :AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

tears sprang to the eyes of many. The conference was closed
Saturday, May 27. The day following, one of the visiting di-
vines, Alber, preached in the morning, Bucer at noon, and Lu-
ther in the afternoon. The same evening Bucer and others were
guests at the Black Cloister ; of their conversation on that oc-
casion the following interesting fragment has been recorded : * —

Luther — I liked your sermon right well, friend Bucer, and yet I
think mine was better.

Bucer — I gladly admit your superiority, doctor.

Luther — I don't mean to boast ; I know my weakness and that I
am not so acute and learned as you in my sermons. But when I enter
the pulpit, I consider my audience, mostly poor laymen and Wends,2
and preach to them. Like a mother I try to give my children milk,
and not some fine syrup from the apothecary. You preach over their
heads, floating around in the clouds and in the " shpirit." 8

In the mean time Melanchthon had drawn up a formula em-
bodying the results of the conference, the Wittenberg Concord,
as it was called, which was signed by all present, save one, on
Monday, May 29. The same day the guests departed. With
them Luther sent several letters on the agreement, one of which
may be transcribed : —

TO THE TOWN COUNCIL OF AUGSBURG

Wittenberg, May 29, 1536.
Grace and peace in Christ. Honorable, wise, and dear friends! I
have heard both of your preachers, together with others, and have
done all in my power for them, as they themselves will tell you. At
last, thank God, we are at one on all things, so far as human power
can tell ; wherefore I kindly and humbly beg you, as much as you can,
to make our union strong and permanent. I have earnestly prayed and
admonished your ministers to do the same, that we may not only teach
the same doctrine with our mouths but also trust one another from the
bottom of our hearts, eradicating all offence as true love is bound to do.
If our agreement please you and your ministers, kindly inform us, as

1 Die handschriftliche Geschichte Batzebergers, edited by Neudecker, 1850,
pp. 87 f .

2 The Wends were the remnants of the Slavonic population which had inhab-
ited Germany before the arrival of the Teutons.

8 Luther ridicules his guest's pronunciation of "Geist" (spirit) as " Gaischt."

THE WITTENBERG AGREEMENT 295

we shall tell you and others how we are pleased with the union. Then
we will have it publicly printed, to the praise of God and the hurt of
the devil and his members. Amen. The Father of all comfort and
peace strengthen and guide your hearts with us in the right knowledge
of his dear Son our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the riches of wis-
dom and knowledge are hidden. Amen.

Your devoted

M. L.

Although the Wittenberg Agreement had reunited the
Lutherans with the German followers of Zwingli the breach
with the Swiss still remained. Bucer, cheered by the success of
his last venture, hoped to heal this schism also, and, finding
the Swiss divines ready to meet him halfway, approached
Luther. His letter reached the Reformer while he was lying at
Schmalkalden very ill, and was therefore not answered until
December 6, 1537. This noncommittal reply left matters as
they had been.

In 1538 the Swiss again addressed themselves to Wittenberg.
On April 15 one of their ministers, Simon Sulzer, visited Saxony
and was received with friendliness at the Black Cloister. A
little later Zwingli's successor at Zurich, Henry Bullinger,
wrote Luther with the same end in view. The Reformer replied
on May 14 : —

Of Zwingli I will say freely that when I saw and heard him at Mar-
burg I judged him an excellent man, as I did CEcolampadius. Their
fate deeply shocked me, being, as I am forced to believe, a retribution
on their obstinately held errors.

After this no further efforts at unification were made.

CHAPTER XXVII

RELATIONS WITH FRANCE, ENGLAND, MAYENCE AND
ALBERTINE SAXONY

By 1535 the League of Schmalkalden had become one of the
great powers of Europe. The Emperor was forced to treat with
this combination of his subjects as with a foreign state, and
the puissant monarchs of France and England sought alliance
with it to bridle the overbearing dominion of the Hapsburgs.
Francis, in courting the fellowship of the German Protestants,
was moved by purely political motives, for there was never any
serious question of his conversion. So earnest was he, however,
in soliciting the heretics' support, that he not only sent a
special embassy to Ernestine Saxony, but invited Melanchthon
to visit his capital. Little as Luther trusted him he thought the
invitation should be accepted for reasons explained in a letter.

TO JOHN FREDERIC, ELECTOR OF SAXONY

(Tobgau ?) August 17, 1535.
Grace and peace and my poor paternoster. Most serene, highborn
Prince, most gracious Lord ! I beg your Grace humbly and earnestly
in God's name to let Philip Melanchthon go to France. I am moved
to make this petition by the piteous letter of pious, honorable men [in
France] who have barely escaped being burned. Melanchthon's re-
ception by the king would bring such slaughter to an end. But if we
fail these people the bloodhounds will have a pretext to do their worst
with stake and axe, so that I think Melanchthon can hardly with a
good conscience leave the men in such need and rob them of their
desired comfort. Besides which the king might take offence against
us all if we refused, for he himself graciously* wrote the invitation
and sent an embassy. Your Grace can leave the issue to God's mercy
while Philip is absent three months. Who knows what God, whose
thoughts are higher than our thoughts, will do ? . . .

Dr. Martin Luther.

ALBERT OF MAYENCE 297

This letter was without effect, for John Frederic feared the
acceptance of the invitation would provoke the Emperor, and
moreover he thought that Melanchthon, whose yielding nature
was only too well known, might be brought to make concessions
prejudicial to sound doctrine.

England, too, was now seeking the aid of the Schmalkaldic
princes. As soon as Henry heard of the act of Francis, he
dispatched Barnes in post haste with a similar invitation to
Melanchthon to visit London. Luther also advised that this
be accepted, but it was again denied.1

Two Catholic princes nearer home divided Luther's atten-
tion with the rulers of France and England. Ever since
1517 he had been in communication with Albert of Mayence.
At the Diet of Worms, as Capito wrote to the Reformer, this
ecclesiastic had advised moderation in dealing with the heretic.
His letter of December 21, 1521, had been the beginning 'of
a rapprochement, for Albert toyed with the idea of changing
his religion and turning his archbishopric into a temporal
fief.

At Augsburg the Hohenzoller had again used his influence for
peace. Shortly after this he drew down Luther's displeasure
by certain acts hostile to the Evangelic faith, and in 1535 a
furious quarrel was caused by a tyrannical act of the Macchia-
vellian prince in the execution of one John Schenitz.

This artisan had risen from a humble position to be a minion
of the powerful Elector of Mayence, at whose request he
was even ennobled by the Emperor in 1532. Two years later
his power suddenly collapsed. He was accused, perhaps with
justice, of fraud ; envious courtiers poisoned the mind of their
lord ; an intrigue of Schenitz with one of Albert's mistresses
aroused the prelate's jealousy, and finally a scapegoat was
needed to satisfy the loud complaints of Albert's subjects
against the extravagance of his administration., So in Septem-
ber, 1534, he was arrested, and notwithstanding bribes offered
by his brother Antony and an appeal to the Emperor, he
was hanged at Giebichenstein in June, 1535. Antony, with
Lewis Rabe, another courtier, fled to Wittenberg, where they
1 Cf. chapter xvn on Lather and Henry VIII, p. 197.

298 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

gave the Kef ormer their own account of the trial. When Albert
complained that he misrepresented the facts he received the
following stern letter from Luther : —

TO ALBERT, ARCHBISHOP OF MAYENCE

Wittknbebg, July 31, 1535.

I wish you repentance and forgiveness of sins, most noble Prince,
gracious Lord ! I am moved to indite this letter to your Holiness, not
in the hope that it will do you any good, but only to satisfy my con-
science before God and the world and not to connive at your crimes
by keeping silence. Lewis Rabe has read me a letter in which your
Holiness threatens to call him to account for mentioning John Schenitz
whom you condemned. As he is my guest and your Holiness doubt-
less knows that you are doing him wrong and do not speak the truth,
I am forced to think that you are privily seeking a quarrel with me,
or are vexed at the honest words of honest men. I can testify con-
scientiously that Rabe sits like a maiden at the table and often speaks
more good of his infernal cardinal than I can well believe. He does
not gad about the town but sits still in his room. The whole city was
full of Schenitz' fate at least two days before either Rabe or I heard
of it, and we could hardly believe this noble deed of your Holiness,
that Schenitz, so highly favored a minion, should suddenly be hanged
by his dearest lord. Neither Rabe nor I invented the story; the
cardinal's name was spit upon and damned without our motion.

If it is your intention to pick a quarrel with me it is my devout
prayer that your Holiness should not strike at my guests and friends.
... I hope your Holiness will not hang me as quickly as you did
Schenitz. I propose to have my thoughts and opinions and also my
conversations with my friends free and unforbidden by your Holiness,
just as I must allow you a similar privilege. If I am a little incred-
ulous about what might be said against Schenitz and for your Holiness
— though I have not heard anything like that hitherto — it is a sin
which may be forgiven me without one of your Holiness's indulgences.
If your Holiness would hang all who speak evil and shame of you in
this and in other matters, you would not find rope enough in all Ger-
many. No matter how busily the infernal cardinal plied the hangman's
trade, some would escape. ... If your Holiness is anxious to know
what people are saying about you throughout Germany, I can very
well publish it, and relate everything which stands to the credit of
such a horrible holy man, clear from the beginning about indulgences

ALBERT OF MAYENCE 29fl

fifteen years ago. Your Holiness is not well advised to stir up so foul
a matter nor to raise that bitter enemy Rumor against you. . . .

In writing this letter to your Holiness for the last time, I must take
comfort that you cannot hang all your enemies, though it were indeed an
easy matter to hang all who wish you well. Leave off your attacks on
God and his Church and let a few live until the infernal torturer gets
hold of you. Amen.

Dr. Martin Luther, Preacher at Wittenberg.

Albert endeavored to appease Luther by turning to their com-
mon friends John Riihel and Prince George of Anhalt as
mediators, but he only succeeded in making him angrier than
before. About the end of January, 1536, the Reformer wrote
him another letter in the tone of that last given, threatening a
book against him charging him with a number of crimes and
vices as well as with the murder of Schenitz. The archbishop
applied to his powerful relative the Elector of Brandenburg,
who, with himself, made diplomatic representations at the court
of Saxony too strong to be ignored. The chancellor of John
Frederic, Gregory Briick, writing to Luther on the subject,
received an answer, dated December 10, 1536, containing the
following paragraph : —

You have informed me that my gracious lord, moved thereto by
letters from the Elector of Brandenburg and his family, has instructed
you to ask me about my proposed pamphlet against the cardinal of
Mayence. I give you to know that I intend to write it, but wish the
Elector of Brandenburg and his relatives nothing but good. I told
them at Torgau and elsewhere that I should prefer to see them take
their noble cousin the cardinal in hand themselves and make him
cease from evil, for truly I am of the opinion that he has mocked our
dear Lord Jesus Christ and plagued poor folk enough. If they did so
it would do more good than for them to complain against my writings.
My pamphlet will contain little that is new ; I simply mean to uncork
that prelate's nose, for it is stopped up so tight that he cannot smell
how he stinks unless he is forced to.

Business and ill health delayed the publication until Luther
had cooled off sufficiently to allow himself to be persuaded not
to write the obnoxious pamphlet at all. He often thought over
the cardinal's sins, however ; on July 1, 1538, for example, he

300 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

sighed and said : " Dear Lord Jesus Christ, give me life and
strength and I will shave that parson's head, for he is a wicked
and crafty mocker of all men."

Another magnate with whom Luther's relations were chronic-
ally bad was Duke George of Albertine Saxony. Ever since
the Leipsic debate the Reformer had hated him as the most con-
sistent enemy of the gospel. The quarrel which had flamed up
in 1529 as a sequel to the Pack affair 1 broke out again in 1531,
when the Duke answered Luther's Warning to his dear Germans,
and when one of his clergy replied to the Gloss on the Putative
Imperial Edict.2 The Reformer received his opponent's work
before it had been published and replied in a characteristically
severe pamphlet Against the Assassin of Dresden. This book-
let was ready for the Leipsic fair of the spring of 1531, for
notwithstanding the supervision of the Duke many of Luther's
works found their way to his capital. It may have been as a
reply to this that in 1532 he passed a law that his subjects
should take the sacrament once a year at least according to the
rites of the Catholic Church, making exile the punishment of
those who refused — exactly the measure of persecution adopted
against the papists in Ernestine Saxony. Luther was furious
when he heard of this law against his co-religionists : —

They say a mad dog lives only nine days, but Duke George has
been mad nine years. He will be a lunatic soon. He has just exiled
some of his subjects on account of the sacrament.

To the Protestants of Albertine Saxony, who wrote Luther
asking what was their duty at this conjuncture, he answered : —

TO THE EVANGELIC CHRISTIANS AT LEIPSIC

Wittenberg, April 11, 1533.

Grace and peace in Christ, who suffers and is put to death among
you, but who will certainly rise and reign.

I have heard, dear friends, that some of you wish to know whether
they may take the sacrament under one kind with good conscience,
saying that if they only do that the government will be satisfied. Al-
though I know none of you nor how your hearts and minds are fixed,,
yet this is my counsel : Whoso is convinced that God's Word commands

1 Cf . Chapter xix. 2 Chapter xxiv.

DUKE GEORGE 301

the sacrament to be dispensed in both kinds should not do anything
contrary to his conscience, for that would be tantamount to acting
against God himself. And as Duke George has undertaken to search
out the secrets of conscience, he will deserve to be deceived, as an
apostle of the devil, which could easily be done, as he has no right to
make such an inquiry, but sins against God and the Holy Ghost. And
yet, as we must not do wrong because others do — though they be
murderers and brigands — but must only decide what is right for us
to do, in the circumstances it would be better to say to the murderer
and brigand openly : "I will not do what you command ; take my
body and estate, and thereby injure him by whom you will be called
to strict account, for Peter says, ' Jesus Christ is ready to judge the
quick and the dead.' Wherefore, dear brigand, go on as you like ; what
you will I will not, but what I will, God wills also, as you shall soon
find out." We must smite the devil in the face with the cross and not
whistle to him nor flatter him, so that he will know with whom he has
to do. May Christ our Lord strengthen you and be with you. Amen.
Dr. Martin Luther, with his own hand.

It is hardly surprising that the prince designated as the
" devil's apostle " should complain that Luther was stirring up
revolt among his subjects. Peace was made by a meeting of
diplomats of each branch of the house of Wettin, only to be
broken the next year when Duke George's son complained
that Luther was praying against his father. To the Elector's
inquiries Luther guardedly answered that he did not know
whether he had done so or not, but at his sovereign's request
he consented to abstain from public prayers of such a kind in
future. A truce was thus observed during the five remaining
years of George's life. The quarrel is not wholly to Luther's
credit. The Duke was in many ways an estimable character,
sincerely convinced of his faith, and yet never, like so many
other princes, staining his hands in the blood of the Protestants.

The Reformer's opinion of his demerits was only confirmed
by his peculiarly tragic end. One by one all of his sons died,
last of all Frederic, an idiot who succumbed to powerful reme-
dies administered to make him capable of having children. The
forlorn old duke made a will leaving his domains to his brother
Henry, known to be a Lutheran, only on condition that he

302 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

embraced the Catholic faith ; otherwise he devised his lands to
King Ferdinand. On his death, April, 1539, Henry the Pious
succeeded, and, disregarding the will, at once introduced the
Keformation with the general consent of his subjects, most of
whom had already become secretly converted. Luther and
Melanchthon accepted his invitation to visit Leipsic during
the festival attending the public adoption of the Protestant
faith. The journey was a triumph contrasting strongly with
the visit of twenty years before, when, frowned upon by the
government and hooted by the populace, the Wittenbergers
had come to debate with Eck.

Luther was hardly convinced of the sincerity of the con-
version. When his friend Link was called to fill a position
in the capital of Albertine Saxony, the Reformer wrote him,
October 26, 1539: —

I would by no means advise you to change your present position
for one at Leipsic. There they were debating who or what will support
the ministers of the Word. If the people are well disposed, neverthe-
less the nobles regard Wittenberg with their old hatred. Duke George
is not dead there as yet, and it is uncertain whether he will die or
rather come back again soon. Indeed I hate that sink of usury and
other wrongs, that Sodom which must be saved for the sake of Lot
only. The remnant of the city is provided for by a happy introduction
of the Evangelic Church.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN. 1535-1539

A NEW phase in the history of the Reformation was ushered in
by the death, in October, 1534, of Clement VII, and the election
of Paul III, a man of very different type, whose main interest
was not to enjoy the temporal benefits of the papacy, but to for-
ward the cause of the Church and especially to stamp out the
growing heresy. He hoped to accomplish this by means of an
oecumenic council, for to such a body the Protestants themselves
had often appealed for a final settlement of orthodox faith. To
arrange for the summoning of such an assembly he sent to Ger-
many as nuncio Vergerio, Bishop of Capo d'Istria. On the way
from Berlin to Dresden this prelate took the longer road by
Wittenberg, excusing himself in a letter to a friend for visiting
this sink of heresy, by saying that he was forced to do it to avoid
the plague endemic in the smaller villages. At Wittenberg,
where he arrived November 6, 1535, he was received with cere-
mony by the bailiff, John von Metsch, and lodged in the elect-
oral castle. On the very night that he came he invited Luther,
Bugenhagen, and their English friend Barnes, now here on of-
ficial business, to " dinner after the bath," according to the then
polite usage. This was declined, but the following day the Ger-
mans — not Barnes — accepted a second invitation to the ten
o'clock lunch which was then the principal repast. Luther's pre-
parations for this meeting, which, by the way, was on Sunday,
are recorded by one of the reporters of the table-talk : —

Luther sent for the barber early to shave him. When he asked why
he was thus summoned, Luther replied : "lam told that an agent of
the Holy Father the Pope has come and that I am to speak with him.
If, therefore, I have a young appearance the legate will think : * The
devil ! If Luther who is not yet old has been able to give so much
trouble, what will he do when he gets on in life ? ' " 1

1 The doctor's desire to appear young was realized ; the nuncio wrote that

804 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

When shaved, the doctor put on his best clothes and a gold chain
around his neck. " Professor," said the barber, " you will offend
them. " Luther replied : " I do it for that very purpose ; they have
offended us enough and one must deal thus with foxes and serpents."
The barber : " Go in peace ; the Lord grant that you may convert
them." Luther : " I shall not do that, but it is possible that they may
be reproved by me before they are dismissed."

Luther and Bugenhagen then drove to the castle, where they
were met by the bailiff, John von Metsch. Here, in a dining-
room, was enacted the following little drama : 1 —

Enter John von Metsch with Luther and Bugenhagen.

Metsch — My Lord, let me present Dr. Luther and our pastor
Bugenhagen — the best company we have for you in Wittenberg.
(Turning to Luther) This is my lord the legate of his Holiness Paul
III.

Luther (taking off his cap) 2 — How do you do ? So you come from
Paul III, do you ? I remember hearing when I was in Rome many
years ago (smiling sarcastically) , celebrating masses by the bushel, that
he who is now Pope was better than the average run of priests.

Vergerio — Let us sit down to table, gentlemen. (They do so ;
Metsch, who waits on the table himself, pours wine.)

Luther (taking a sip of wine) — I daresay that before you came
to Germany you heard that I was drunk most of the time ?

Vergerio — I did hear some things, professor. — I regret that the
Englishman was unable to accept my invitation to dinner. Who is he,
anyway ?

Luther — Oh, he is King Henry's private secretary sent as special
ambassador to us. He mentioned that his monarch had just put to
death a couple of bishops ; 8 I told him I wished it had been a hun-
dred.

Vergerio — How can you praise sufficiently what he has done to
these two holy men ?

although fifty he looked only forty. The Italian gentleman, however, ridiculed the
ex-monk's dress and poor way of living.

1 For the sources of this see the bibliography at the end of the book. I have
followed them as accurately as possible, simply turning some indirect into direct
discourse and supplying a few absolutely necessary junctura.

2 This courtesy was so much less than the legate expected that he found it an
insult.

8 Luther means Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, who was not
a bishop.

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 305

Luther — It would be hard to do so. ( Vergerio gnaws his lips and
makes a furious gesture.) England is certainly coming over to our
side and would support the German Protestants against the Catholics.

Vergerio — Don't be deceived by his arguments and his bribes. We
should do far better to make common cause against this monster than
to eat each other up. (Pause.) Speaking of bishops how do you get
along here without any to ordain your priests ?

Luther (pointing to Bugenhagen) — There sits the bishop appointed
for that purpose.

Bugenhagen (solemnly nodding) — Aye, we ordain them according
to the method taught by the Apostle Paul.

Vergerio (sarcastically) — Indeed !

Luther (warmly) — You see, my lord, we are compelled to ; and
men publicly approved are thus ordained.

Vergerio — What do you mean by " compelled " ?

Luther (hotly) — Your Roman bishops are too holy for us ; they
despise us and won't do it, so we have to provide for our own souls,
and we appoint one of ourselves to take the place of the bishop.

Vergerio — I suppose these priests think it better to marry than to
burn ?

Luther — Aye, they are husbands of one wife. I have an honorable
nun myself ; we have three boys and two girls. The eldest boy is nine.1
I expect he will be a great Evangelic theologian some day to take my
place.

Vergerio — Do you teach him to fast and pray ?

Luther (fiercely) — Not when the Pope orders him to.

Vergerio — Do you mean to say that you refuse to fast just because
our Holy Father the Pope commands it ?

Luther — Precisely ; if it were the Emperor, now, we would ; we
respect him.

Vergerio — What you say is really incomprehensible. Don't you
know that the Emperor himself is a mere creature of the Pope ? The
Supreme Pontiff crowns him and our Holy Mother Church created
the Empire. But to come to the point. If the Pope, whom you insult,
were to summon a general council of the Church, would you come
to it ?

Luther — I think a general, free, Christian council would be an

extremely useful and necessary thing ; not for us, indeed, for we know

the truth, but for foreign nations. But you only pretend to call a

council, not acting sincerely nor really wishing for one. But supposing

1 Vergerio says Luther said " twelve " ; this is a mistake.

306 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

you did call a council, you would only discuss useless things, cowls,
priests' tonsures, food and drink, and such external things as, we
know, justify no man before God. But of faith, true penitence, just-
ification and other necessary things, and how those who believe in
spirit and in truth may live at one — of these things you will not so
much as make mention. Wherefore we do not need a council, but you,
miserable men, do need one, for your faith is vain and uncertain.

Vergerio — Luther, what do you mean ? Beware lest you take too
much on yourself ; you are a man and can err. Do you think you are
wiser, more learned, more holy than so many councils, holy fathers,
and learned men throughout the whole world who confess Christ and
profess his religion ? It is only your arrogance that rebels.

Luther (fiercely) — My arrogance ! I tell you, man, my wrath is
God's wrath !

Vergerio — But would you come ?

Luther — Yes, and lose my head. I will appear, God willing, if
you burn me for my faith.

Vergerio — Tell me in what place or city you think the council
should be called.

Luther — Mantua, Padua, Florence — it 's all one to me.

Vergerio — Would you come to Bologna ?

Luther — To whom does Bologna belong ?

Vergerio — To the Pope.

Luther — Good God ! Has the Pope seized that city, too ? Well, I
will come to you there.

Vergerio — Neither would the Pope refuse to come to you at Wit-
tenberg.

Luther — 'Let him come, we will receive him cordially.

Vergerio — If he came armed or in peace ?

Luther — As he pleases. Only let him come, we will expect and
await him. (They rise from table, and go outside where Vergerio 's
retinue are awaiting him. Vergerio mounts his horse.)

Vergerio — Be sure and be ready for the council.

Luther — Yes, my lord, with my life.

Of the nuncio's visit Luther wrote on November 10 to
Jonas : —

The Pope's legate appeared unexpectedly in this city. He is now
with the Margrave of Brandenburg ; one would think he rather flew
than rode. Would that you had been here to see him ! He invited
Bugenhagen and me to lunch when we had declined his invitation " to

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 307

dinner after the bath " the night before. I went and ate with him in
the castle, but what I said is not lawful for a man to write. I played
Luther in the disagreeablest words, of which I shall tell you when I
see you. I also had to play the part of Barnes, who was invited but
did not go as he will inform you.

On June 2, 1536, the Pope actually summoned the long
talked of council to meet at Mantua on May 23, 1537. When
the news reached Wittenberg in December, 1536, Luther said :

If the Pope cites me I will not go. I spit on his citation because he
is my adversary. But if the council summons me I will obey, and I
would like to be welcome and kindly received. But the bull Coena
Domini 1 has most horribly damned me and excommunicated all my
friends. Even you, dear Katie, if you were with me, would be tor-
tured although you adored the whole papacy. The Lord keep me in
his Word ! I have bitter enemies and Vergerio said the Roman See
had no worse enemy than me.

Various methods were suggested by which the Protestants
might meet the invitation of the Pope to take part in the coun-
cil. John Frederic proposed that they should call a counter-
council, an act from which Luther dissuaded him, as savoring
of wilful schism. To decide on a consistent course of action
the Protestant princes and theologians met in a congress at
Schmalkalden in February, 1537. In preparation for this
Luther drew up a confession of faith, known as the Schmal-
kaldic Articles. In emphasizing the differences of the Protest-
ants and Catholics the Articles formed a strong contrast
with the intentionally conciliatory Augsburg Confession. The
chief points of variance were stated to be the following : 1. That
men are saved by faith, not by works. 2. That the mass, con-
sidered as a good work, is a horror and ought to be abolished.
3. That all foundations for the endowment of perpetual masses
be abolished. 4. That the Pope is not the head of the universal
Church but only Bishop of Rome. Melanchthon modified this
statement by adding that if the Pope left the Protestants to rule
themselves, they would not interfere with his de facto suprem-
acy in other parts. Sundry other demands, of subordinate
importance, were added.

1 1521.

308 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Luther intended to present his articles to the congress in
person, but after he arrived a severe attack of the stone pre-
vented him from taking part in the sittings of the princes.
Melanchthon was left at the helm, and he induced the Elector to
substitute for the articles the Augsburg Confession, supple-
mented by a statement written by himself on the extent of the
papal power. These documents were accordingly accepted by
the allies, who decided not to attend the council and sent back
the Pope's invitation unopened. This was a significant step.
Hitherto the Protestants had claimed to be a party within the
old Church, and had repeatedly requested a council to decide on
the orthodoxy of their claims. Now, however, they boldly pro-
claimed that their communion was distinct from that of Kome.

All other interests, however, were for the moment over-
shadowed by Luther's illness ; the chief fears of the allies were
for his life. It often happened to him that a change of scene
and diet proved unwholesome, never more so than now. His
old malady the stone became very acute. His sufferings began
almost as soon as he arrived ; after February 11 he was obliged
to keep to his room in the inn. He kept up his good spirits,
however, as is shown by his letter to a friend at home.

TO JUSTUS JONAS AT WITTENBERG

Chalcis x (Schmalkalden ), February 14, 1537.

Grace and peace in Christ. I wrote you yesterday, dear Jonas, that
is, on St. Valentine's eve ; now I write you on the saint's day, as he
keeps me here against my will. Last night Valentine 2 began to make
me convalescent from the stone ; not indeed that Valentine who is the
idol of epileptics, but the true and only valiant Valentine who saves
those that trust in him. I hope that I shall at length be well by his
grace. This is the eighth day since I stick or rather hang here, sick
and tired of the place and of the inn and desirous of returning. For I
am useless here. The princes and estates act differently from what I
advised regardless of me.

Dr. Pauli and Dr. Sindringer have become the bitterest enemies of
the Pope. How they tear him to pieces with his own decrees ! I will

1 Pun on " calculus ," the stone.

2 Pun on the name of the saint as the patron of health, valens.

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 309

tell you of it when I see you. Dr. Held, the Emperor's ambassador,
arrived yesterday and perhaps spoke before the congress to-day.

I am a beggar here, eating the bread of the Landgrave of Hesse
and the Duke of Wurttemburg (for they have the best loaves and fishes)
and drinking the wine of Nuremberg ; our own Elector sends me meat
and fish. You told me heavy bread caused the stone and now I learn
it by experience, for that is the kind of bread we get here. I have the
very best trout, but they are cooked in the same way and with the same
water as the other fish. Oh, it is a merry dish ! I am accustomed to
ask for them uncooked from " the cooks of the earth," * and give
them to the Nuremberg chef to be prepared. Our Elector cares for me
in all things and orders everything to be supplied to me as carefully
as possible, but his orders are interfered with by his toadies, moadies,
noadies, and loadies. I have nothing else to write. Farewell in the
Lord and pray for me.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

After the temporary respite just spoken of, the disease re-
sumed its course. The patient suffered intense pain, as well as
great discomfort in other ways. The doctors used all the
remedies in their power, some of which perhaps did more harm
than good, but at last despaired of his life. During these days
his old amanuensis Veit Dietrich, now a Nuremberg clergyman
attending the congress, was constantly with him and according
to his old practice again took down his master's sayings. A few
of these 2 illustrating the bravery of the sick man may be of
interest : —

Saturday, February 24, when Melanchthon burst into tears on see-
ing Luther, the latter said : " John L5ser is accustomed to say that it
is no credit to drink good beer, but that the real test is drinking bad
beer ; I have need of the philosophy now. Have we received good at
the hands of the Lord and shall we not also receive evil ? As the Lord
willed so it has happened ; blessed be the name of the Lord. In times
past I have often played a dangerous game with the Pope and with
the devil, but the Lord marvellously saved and strengthened me ; why

1 " Cooks of the earth " is an allusion to a joke made hy Luther's little son.
Asked by his father who was the dirtiest (immundus) cook, he replied " a cook of
the earth (in mundo)."

2 Taken from Kostlin-Kawerau : Martin Luther, ii, 388, where they are quoted
from Dietrich's unpublished notes,

310 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

should I not now bear with equanimity what the Lord inflicts ? My
death is as nothing compared with that of the Son of God; many
great and holy men have died before me, whose companions I am not
worthy to be, but if I wish to be with them I must also die. There-
fore I pray God with good courage, for our Lord is the Lord of life
and has us in his hand.

" How quickly I am changed by disease — Quantum mutatus ab
illol But lately I wandered through the woods in good health. O
God, we are nothing! I should like to pray our Lord God — even to
complain a little — that I might die in my Saxony ; if that cannot be
I am ready to die when and where he calls me, and I shall die the
enemy of all the enemies of my Lord Jesus Christ. If I die under the
ban of the Pope, the Pope will die under the ban of my Lord Christ."

The next day, after a violent attack of vomiting, he said : <* Dear
Father, take my soul in thy hand. . . . Let me die. If this pain lasts
longer, I shall go mad and fail to recognize thy goodness. If it were
not for my faith in Christ I would kill myself. The devil hates me
and has his claws in me, but do thou, God, avenge me on mine adver-
sary ; let me die and pay thou the devil as he deserves.''

Long afterwards he said : —

Oh, how I wanted my wife and children at Schmalkalden ! I thought
I would never see them more. How sorrowful that separation made
me ! I believe that the natural love of husband for wife and parents
for children is greatest in dying people. But now that I am well again
by God's grace, I love my wife and children all the more. No one is
so spiritual as not to feel natural inclination and love, for the union of
man and wife is a great thing.

Luther was anxious to leave Schmalkalden so as not to die in
the vicinity of " that monster " the Pope's legate, and also to
spend his last hours in Saxony. Melanchthon would have held
him back on account of the new moon, but Luther was free
from this form of superstition and insisted on setting out. He
did so, in company with Bugenhagen, Sturtz, Myconius, and
Schlaginhaufen, on February 26. The jolting of the carriage on
the rough road was such torture to him that he cried out : "Would
that some Turk would fall upon me and kill me!" At Tambach,
only two miles away, he was forced to halt. The same night he
was unexpectedly, as he'believed miraculously, relieved. He lost
no time in dictating the following letters: —

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 311

TO PHILIP MELANCHTHON AT SCHMALKALDEN

Tambach, February 27, 1537.
Dearest Philip : Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies and of all consolation, who this night at
two o'clock took pity on me and relieved my sufferings. ... At
last I was able to pass water. ...

I am writing at once. Please tell the news to my dear and gracious
lords and all others, for I know how gladly they helped me. Let it go
with me as God wills ; I am ready to live or die, now that I have es-
caped from the pit into our own Saxony, and have here obtained
grace. I have written this in haste. Schlaginhaufen will tell you the
rest. He cannot be kept back but will fly to you. Thank God for
what has happened and continue to pray that he may perfect his work.
This is an example of how we should pray and trust in help from
heaven. May God preserve you all and beat down Satan and all his
monstrous Roman allies under your feet. Amen. Written at two
thirty in the night from Tambach, the place of my blessing, which
is my Phanuel in which God appeared to me.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

The next morning as Schlaginhaufen galloped into Schmal-
kalden with this letter, he saw the Pope's legate looking out of
the window and shouted to him : " Luther lives." In the mean
time word had been dispatched

TO CATHARINE LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

Tambach, February 27, 1537.

Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Katie, if you need horses on the
farm you must hire them a while longer, for the Elector is going to
keep your horses and send them home with Melanchthon.

Yesterday I left Schmalkalden in the Elector's private carriage. The
reason I left was that for three days I have been very unwell, unable
to pass water the whole time. I could not rest nor sleep at night nor
keep anything on my stomach. In short I was dead and commended
you and the children to God and to my gracious Elector, thinking
that I would never see you more. My heart was moved for you, for I
thought I was surely in the grave. But men have prayed hard to God
and perhaps some have wept before him, so that he has healed me

312 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

this night. Wherefore thank God and ask the children and Aunt Lena
to do the same, for you almost lost me. The good Elector did everything
in his power for me but in vain. Moreover your medicine l did not help
me. But God wrought a miracle on me this night, and will continue
to do so at the prayers of pious people.

I am writing to you because I heard that the Elector ordered his
bailiff to send you to me so that if I should die on the road you might
speak with me again. There is no need of this now, as God has helped
me so much that I expect to come soon and happily. To-day we are
going to Gotha. I have written you four letters since I left home and
am surprised that nothing has come from you.

Martin Luther.

The crisis was past, but a period of lassitude and weakness
followed. This was so great that when Luther reached Gotha
he believed he was going to die after all. The following day he
accordingly dictated a farewell document usually known as his
first will, though it is not at all what we understand by a test-
amentary disposition of property, but rather a few valedictory
precepts and messages : —

luther's (first) will

(Gotha, February 28, 1537.)

God be praised. I know I did right to attack the papacy, which
injures the cause of God, Christ, and the gospel.

Ask my dear Melanchthon, Jonas, and Cruciger to forgive me what
wrong I have done them.

Console my Katie that she may bear this, and let her consider that
she has been happy with me twelve years. She has served me not
only as a wife but as a servant. May God reward her ! Care for her
and the children as you can. -

Greet the deacons of my church for me. The pious citizens of Wit-
tenberg have often served me.

Say to my Prince the Elector and my Lord the Landgrave not to be
disturbed by the charges of our enemies who allege that they will
steal the church property, for they will not seize it as some others
have done. I see that they rather use the church property to support
religious undertakings. If there is any surplus, why should it not go
to them ? It certainly belongs to the princes rather than to papal

1 A mixture of garlic and horses' dung.

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 313

wretches. Bid them act boldly in the Evangelic cause, and do what
the Holy Spirit may suggest ; I do not prescribe the way. May God
the merciful strengthen them to remain in the sound doctrine, and
let them give thanks that they are freed from Antichrist. I have
earnestly commended them to God in prayer, and hope that he will
preserve them and that they may not relapse into papal impiety.
Even if they are not pure in all things but sinners in some, let them
nevertheless confide in God, notwithstanding the calumnies and ac-
cusations of our adversaries. For their sins are as nothing compared
to the impiety, blasphemy, hatred, and murders of our antichristian
enemies. From these sins God has freed our princes. Therefore let
them be strong and proceed in the Lord's name.

Now I am prepared to die if the Lord will. But I should like to
live until Pentecost, that I may more solemnly and publicly accuse
the Roman Beast and his reign. I will do this if I live ; I shall not
need spurs. Others will come after me who will deal more rudely
with that beast, although I, too, if I live, will deal more roughly in
future.

Now I commend my soul into the hands of my Lord Jesus Christ,
whom I have preached and confessed on earth.

The weakness was not fatal after all, and in five or six days
Luther was able to move on by slow stages. Jonas met him on
the road with one of Luther's nieces as nurse, and Katie came
as far as Altenburg to see her husband. Here she was enter-
tained by George Spalatin. Luther was soon able to move on
again and reached home on March 14 ; a week later he was
able to write this note : —

TO GEORGE SPALATIN AT ALTENBURG

(Wittenberg,) March 21, 1537.
Grace and peace in Christ. I am able to write again, dear Spala-
tin, after my long vacation from literary labors. By God's grace I am
convalescing slowly, and am learning to eat and drink again, although
my knees and bones sink in and are not able to bear my body stead-
ily. More of my strength is exhausted than I would have believed
possible, but I will rest and take care of myself until God makes me
strong again. My Katie greets you and says that she regrets that she
brought your daughters no present, but that she is going to have some
books bound and send them as a souvenir of her visit. In the mean

314 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

time she asks to be kindly remembered to you. She often speaks at
length of your urbane benevolence and benevolent urbanity. Fare-
well in Christ and pray for me.

Yours,

Martin Luther.

In anticipation of the calling of a council, Luther published,
in March, 1539, an important book On Councils and the
Church, at which he had worked during the winter of 1536-37
until interrupted by the events just recorded. The first two
sections, which the author himself termed " weak and verbose,"
set forth the history of the early councils of the Church for
the purpose of demolishing their authority, and especially of
proving that such bodies have no claim to inerrancy or obedi-
ence at present. The third section is on the Church, of which
the writer exclaims : "Praise God, every child of seven years old
knows what it is." Nowadays we speak of many churches, to
Luther there was only one, " the true," set over against " the
false church " of the papacy. The true Church he defines as
the holy community of Christians, and one may recognize it by
a number of outward signs, of which the following are the
most important : The Church exists wherever : (1) God's Word
is preached, (2) baptism is administered, (3) the Lord's Sup-
per is eaten, (4) tfre power of the keys (forgiveness and punish-
ment) is exercised, (5) there is a regular priesthood, (6) public
prayer, praise, and thanks are offered up, (7) there is the cross
and persecution. In closing, the Reformer gives a short exposi-
tion of his ideas of the divine economy, according to which
the family, the State, and the Church are the three providential
ordinances for the governance and well-being of mankind.

It being now clear that the Protestants would not submit to
a council, to which they had earlier appealed, the Emperor
continued to treat with them about other means of settling the
religious question. For this purpose a conference was arranged
at Frankfort in the spring of 1539, the Lutheran Church being
represented by Melanchthon. The Emperor agreed to suspend
all proceedings against the Protestants for fifteen months, and
the settlement of the religious question was relegated to a Ger-
man national synod, called to meet at Spires in June, 1540.

THE LEAGUE OF SCHMALKALDEN 315

No mention of a general council was made. That called for
1537 had been postponed, and did not in fact meet until 1545.
The treaty of Frankfort, signed April 19, 1539, marks the
most important advance made by the Lutherans since the peace
of Nuremberg, seven years before.

CHAPTER XXIX

CHARACTER AND HABITS

There is no good portrait of Luther after his forty-third year,
but from the numerous inferior pictures painted by Lucas Cran-
ach's sons and apprentices and from a number of descriptions it
is possible to get a fairly good idea of his personal appearance.
The accounts are somewhat contradictory in details, as, for ex-
ample, his eyes are variously reported to have been black, brown,
and dark with yellow rings around the pupils. Almost all, how-
ever, were impressed by the restless fire that flashed from them,
and by the lion-like mien of the man. In later life his form be-
came portly, but in spite of illness he retained a look of uncom-
mon youth and vigor. His hair turned gray but did not become
sparse. In his last years traces of suffering and irritability ap-
peared, though when he was forty-two even an enemy found his
expression pleasant and serene.1

In dress Luther's tastes were of the simplest. His ordinary
habit was the layman's jerkin and hose, which were sometimes
poor and patched. He occasionally mended his clothes him-
self; in the first half of 1539 Lauterbach heard Katie complain
that her husband had cut a piece out of his son's trousers to
supply his own. He defended himself thus : —

The hole was so large that I had to have a large patch for it.
Trousers seldom fit me well, so I have to make them last long. If the
Electors Frederic and John had not better tailors than I have they
would mend their own breeches. The Italian tailors are the best. They
divide the labor, some making coats, some cloaks, and some trousers.
But in Germany they do it hit or miss, making all trousers according
to one pattern. We praise the good old times but we live in the
present. Think what an eye-sore it is to see a man with trousers like
a pigeon and a coat so short that one can see his back between it and
1 Cf. supra, visit of Vergerio, Chapter xxviii.

CHARACTER AND HABITS 317

the trousers. There is a proverb that "short-coated Saxons jump
like magpies."

On festive occasions and when preaching, Luther wore a gown
and on gala days a gold chain around his neck, an attempt at
adornment which a polished and hostile Italian gentleman who
saw him in 1535 found rather ridiculous.1 At all times a silver
ring graced one finger. Luther's standards of cleanliness were
relatively high. He had a bath-room with tubs in his house ; after
using it one day he remarked, at dinner : —

Why is the water so dirty after bathing ? Ah ! I forgot that the
body is dirt, as the Bible says, " Thou art dust and ashes." Why art
thou proud, O man ?

The day began early, the time of rising varying according to
the season. The morning was devoted to lecturing and preach-
ing, though Luther frequently felt headache and dizziness which
prevented him from doing much work. The principal meal of
the day came at ten o'clock, after which the long afternoon was
spent in writing and other business. After supper at five o'clock
the evening was spent in conversation, reading, or work until
nine, the regular bedtime. Of his evening devotions he once
said : —

I have to hurry all day to get time to pray. It must suffice me if
I can say the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and one or
two petitions besides, thinking of which I fall asleep.

Luther's enemies called him a glutton and a wine-bibber. But
in the monastery he had fasted until he became emaciated,
and in later life his ill health often made it difficult for him to
eat. In general he tried to eat, thinking it good for his health
and spirits, as when he said : - —

This morning the devil had a dispute with me about Zwingli and I
found a full head better able to withstand the fiend than one weakened
with fasting.

And again : —

We ought t« do our part and take care of our bodies ; when we are
tempted, abstinence is a hundred times worse than eating and drink-

1 Vergerio. Cf. supra, Chapter xxvui.

318 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

ing. Had I followed my appetite I should have taken nothing for three
days, but I do eat though without pleasure. The world sees it and calls
it drunkenness, but God will judge it rightly. . . . Sleep is also a good
thing ; when I lie awake the devil comes at once to dispute with me
until I say : " Devil, go hang,1 God is not angry with me as you say."

Of good drink Luther was. undoubtedly fond, but his practice
in this respect must be judged by the standard of his age. No
one advocated total abstinence, and the greatest licence was
allowed not only to moderate indulgence but to intemperance.
Charles V is reported to have taken habitually three quarts of
wine at dinner — some authorities say more — and he was never
charged with excess in this respect, as was the Elector John Fred-
eric. Luther had special reasons for his potations. It is now
believed that alcohol is little better than poison to one suffering
as he did from diseases of the nerves or of the kidneys, but four
centuries ago drink was actually prescribed for these ailments,
and moreover he took a " strong little potation " at bedtime to
make himself sleep. Other motives are more questionable, as,
for example, when he tells Weller that he often drinks freely to
" spite the devil." 2

Nevertheless, Luther certainly stopped short of intemperance.
No one who did the enormous amount of work that he did
could have been an habitual drunkard. In a sermon to the
courtiers he tells them that, though constant intemperance is
not to be borne, an occasional carouse may be overlooked. Did
he allow himself these occasional carouses? The argument from
silence is in this case decisive in the negative ; knowing almost
every act of his private life for fifteen years, we never once
hear of such an outburst. At times, however, his conviviality
bordered on the extreme, and that he was always appreciative
of the merits of good liquor may be gathered from the fact that
when he is away from home he almost always writes of the
cheer he is having. For example, while visiting the Princes of
Anhalt, he sent the following epistle : —

1 Luther's stronger expression will not bear literal translation.

2 Letter to Jerome Weller, July, 1530.

CHARACTER AND HABITS 319

TO CATHARINE LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

(Dessau,) July 29, 1534.
Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Master Katie, I have nothing to
write, as Melanchthon and others are going to Wittenberg and will tell
you all the news. I must stay here for the sake of good Prince Joachim.
Imagine if you can why I should stay so long or why you ever let me
go. I think Francis Burkhardt * would be willing to see me depart, as
I would him. Yesterday I shipped some bad beer for which I had to
sing out.2 There is nothing fit to drink here, for which I am sorry as

I like it, and think what good wine and beer I have at home, and also
a fair lady (or should I say lord ?) It would be a good thing for you
to send me the whole wine-cellar and a bottle of your own beer as
often as you can. If you don't I shall not come back for the new beer.
God bless you and the children and household. Amen.

Your lover,

Martin Luther.

The most damaging evidence, however, has been found in an
autograph of the Vatican Archives, first published in 1880. The
content of the epistle is somewhat unguarded, and the signa-
ture, which is very hard to decipher, was read " Dr. plenus " 3
and interpreted " Dr. Full," a welcome proof to the Catholic
publisher of the author's intoxication at the time he wrote. I
believe, however, that this is not the true reading, and accord-
ingly give another, with a translation of the most important
part of the jocose missive : —

TO CASPAR MULLER, CHANCELLOR OF MANSFELD, AT EISLEBEN

(Wittenberg,) March 1, 1536.

... Pray tell his Grace of Mansf eld from me to be merry, as in

the story of the two students and the cook. People begin to say, or

murmur, that a great deal depends on cheerfulness, and I half believe

them. I have n't written to his Grace myself for fear that the Buck

1 The Saxon agent, later vice-chancellor.

2 "The English slang expression, " to sing out," is given in Grimm's Deutsckes
Worterbuch, x, 1, 1009, as a translation for the German colloquialism here used.

8 So also in Enders, x, 137. Other readings are " Dr. Hans," " Dr. plures," and

II Dr. parvus." After a careful comparison with photographs of the original, I
have adopted the reading of Prof. H. Bohmer (Luther im Lichte der neueren For-
schung, 2ded. 1910, p. 116).

320 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

of Liibeck 1 would make a fool of me. Yet as I now and then cast an
inquisitive eye on his Grace, please tell him my opinion. What harm
does a little jollity do ? The beer is good, the maid fair, the boys young.
The students are so merry that I am sorry that my health prevents
me being oftener with them. Understand me like the poor, simple
sheep you are said to be. I would willingly be good but I fear that I
can never be as simple as you are. God bless you and greet all good
friends. Amen.

Dr. Martin.

Dr. Luther.

Dr. Johannes.
P. S. — My Lord Katie sends her greetings and so does your god-
son Hans.

The three signatures are for the three persons who send
greetings to Miiller, Dr. Martin, " my Lord Katie " as Dr.
Luther, and nine-year old Hans (Dr. Johannes).

Occasionally good stories 2 are told as to the quantity Luther
drank, but that he became intoxicated is never recorded. Of
the charges brought by his enemies, he once said : " If God can
forgive me for having crucified him with masses twenty years
long, he can also bear with me for occasionally taking a good
drink to honor him. God allows it, the world may take it as it
pleases."

Luther has been charged by his enemies, from his own day to
the present, with being a profligate as well as a drunkard — the
two usually going together. This accusation may be summarily
denied. In the age of Henry VIII, Francis I, and Philip of
Hesse, the example of the monk of Wittenberg was a striking
contrast to the prevalent immorality. So light indeed was the
condemnation visited upon sexual offences in that licentious age
that one of the Kef ormer's guests once asked him if simple for-
nication was a sin at all. He replied by quoting 1 Corinthians,
vi, 9. At another time he wrote a most uncompromising opinion
of houses of ill-fame ; the conversion of Freiberg had been ac-
companied by the abolition of these dens, but it was later pro-
posed to reinstate them on the customary plea that regulated
vice was the lesser of two evils. When Weller, now the pastor

1 Waa the Buck of Liibeck, a person, a spirit, or a tavern ?

2 As at the banquet given to Agricola. Cf . Chapter xxv, p. 284.

CHARACTER AND HABITS 321

of that town, wrote to his chief to ascertain the stand he should
take in the matter, he received the following injunctions : —

TO JEROME WELLER AT FREIBERG

(Wittenberg,) September 8, 1540.
Grace and peace. Dear Jerome, have nothing to do with those who
wish to reintroduce houses of ill-fame. It would have been better never
to have expelled the devil 'than to have done so only to bring him back
again stronger than ever. Let those who favor this course deny the
name of Christ and become as heathen ignorant of God. We who are
Christians cannot do so. We have the plain text : u Whoremongers
and adulterers God will judge," much more, therefore, will he judge
those who protect and encourage vice. How can the priests preach
against impurity if the magistrates encourage it ? They allege the
precedent of Nuremberg, but forget that she is the only town that has
thus sinned. If the young men cannot contain, let them marry — in-
deed, what is the use of marriage if we permit vice unpunished ? We
have learned by experience that regulated vice does not prevent
adultery and worse sins, but rather encourages them and condones
them. . . . Let the magistrate punish one as well as the other, and
if there is then secret vice, at least he is not to blame for it. We can
neither do nor permit nor tolerate anything against God's command.
We must do right if the world comes to an end. Farewell in haste.

Dr. Martin Luther.

If Luther's life was pure, his words certainly were not so at
all times. It strikes the modern reader with no less than aston-
ishment, almost with horror, to find the great moralist's private
talk with his guests and children, his lectures to the students,
even his sermons, thickly interlarded with words, expressions,
and stories, such as to-day are confined to the frequenters of the
lowest bar-rooms. The only justification for this is to be found
in the universal practice of the day. Not only was the popular
literature of the time unspeakably filthy, but the conversation
of the best society had a liberty exceeding that of the men and
women of Shakespeare's plays. Shocking stories are told of
the conversation of England's virgin queen, and Margaret of
Navarre, one of the most devout and refined women of the six-
teenth century, wrote a series of stories that no decent woman
can now read with pleasure. In that day it was thought strange

322 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

that any one should be forbidden to speak of things of which
every one knows.

With all possible excuses allowed in extenuation of the Wit-
tenberg professor's talk, it is to be regretted that he did not
rise above the level of his age. If his student Mathesius found
nothing shameful in his words his friend Melanchthon did. No
amount of precedent can excuse the disgusting things he some-
times said about his private relations with Katie.1 At times it
seemed as if he allowed himself liberty in this regard as in
drinking, " to spite the devil " — a strange expression which he
undoubtedly meant literally. At other times his good humor
ran away with him. In one letter he seems to condone loose
talk under certain circumstances : —

TO PRINCE JOACHIM OF ANHALT

Wittenberg, May 23, 1534.

Grace and peace in Christ. Serene Prince, gracious Lord ! Haus-
mann has told me that your Grace has been a little unwell, but are
now, thank God, again in good condition.

It often occurs to me that, as your Grace leads a quiet life, mel-
ancholy and sad thoughts may be the cause of such indisposition ;
wherefore I advise your Grace, as a young man, to be merry, to ride,
hunt, and keep good company, who can cheer your Grace in a godly
and honorable way. For loneliness and sadness are simple poison and
death, especially to a young man. God has often commanded us to be
joyful before him, and will suffer no sad offering, as Moses often
wrote, and as it is often written in Ecclesiastes : " Rejoice, young man,
in thy youth, and let thy heart be of good cheer." No one knows how it
hurts a young man to avoid happiness and cultivate solitude and mel-
ancholy. Your Grace has Hausmann and several others with whom to
be merry. Joy and good humor, in honor and seemliness, is the best
medicine for a young man, yea for all men. I, who have hitherto
spent my life in mourning and sadness, now seek and accept joy
wherever I can find it. We now know, thank God, that we can be
happy with a good conscience, and can use God's gifts with thankful-
ness, inasmuch as he has made them for us and is pleased to have us
enjoy them.

1 These are quite unquotable, but are sufficiently numerous to be easily found
in the originals, e. g., Bindseil: Lutheri Colloquia, ii, 299.

CHARACTER AND HABITS 323

If I have not hit the cause of your Grace's indisposition and have
thereby done you a wrong, your Grace will kindly forgive my mistake.
For truly I thought your Grace might be so foolish as to think it a sin
to be happy, as I have often done and still do at times. It is true that
joy in sin is the devil, but joy with good, pious people, in the fear of
God, and with moderation pleases him, even if an indecent 1 word or
two now and then slips in. Your Grace should be happy in all things,
inwardly in Christ and outwardly in God's gifts ; for he gives them to
us that we may have pleasure in them and thank him for them. Sor-
row and melancholy bring on old age and other evils before their time.
Christ cares for us and will not leave us. I commend your Grace to
him eternally. Amen.

Dr. Martin Luther.

This letter is characteristic of Luther's naturally joyous tem-
per. He was, as Mathesius called him, " a joyous, frolicsome
companion.'* His good humor bursts forth on all occasions when
not crushed out by ill health or overwork. Another letter bub-
bling over with it is to the same good friend : —

TO PKINCE JOACHIM OF ANHALT AT DESSAU

(Wittenberg,) June 12, 1534.
Grace and peace in Christ. Gracious Prince and Lord ! John Beich-
ling has brought me very good news, namely, that your Grace is very
merry. For truly I prayed without ceasing (as did my gracious lord,2
the cathedral provost), " O God, make my prince sound and happy,"
and I expected he would. And as soon as I have fed the printer a lit-
tle bit 8 so that I can have rest, I will come to you with Pomeranian

1 Wort oder Zotlein zu viel. Luther's defenders try hard to prove that " Zote "
here means nothing more than " idle talk " or " anecdote," and they are supported
hy the excellent German dictionary of Daniel Sanders (Grimm's monumental lexi-
con being complete only to the letter S), iii, 1779. Sanders assigns the mean-
ing of "indecency" to every other use of this word, modern and by Luther
and his contemporaries, except this place. This is of course arguing in a circle
from a preconceived notion. The innocent meaning here given, besides being
otherwise unsupported, would have no sense, for why should Luther especially
excuse what is entirely innocent, or how can a "simple anecdote" be "too
much " ?

2 Joachim's brother, Prince George of Anhalt.

8 With the German Bible now coming out as a whole for the first time. The in-
tended visit took place in July. Cf. the letter to Katie of July 29, 1534, translated
just above, p. 319.

324 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Bugenhagen and his little pomeranians and marmots, so that my gra-
cious lady your wife may see how like the old dog the puppies are and
how merry. God bless you. Amen. Your Grace must really look out
for that marvellous chess-player, Francis Burkhardt,1 for he is quite
sure that he can play the game like a professional. I would give a but-
ton to see him play as well as he thinks he can. He can manage the
knights, take a castle or two, and fool the peasant-pawns, but the queen
beats him on account of his weakness for the fair sex, which he cannot
deny.

Your Grace's obedient servant,

Martin Luther.

Luther's constant advice to his friends to cultivate the virtue
of cheerfulness was made the more emphatic by the fact that he
himself was often subject to melancholy and depression. His
letters and table-talk are full of counsel to young friends on the
subject, the best perhaps being in an epistle written to Jerome
Weller at Wittenberg while the Reformer was at Teste Coburg
in the summer of 1530. He says : —

Whenever this temptation comes to you beware not to dispute with
the devil nor allow yourself to dwell on these lethal thoughts, for so
doing is nothing less than giving place to the devil and so falling. Try
as hard as you can to despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this sort
of temptation and battle contempt is the easiest road to victory ; laugh
your enemy to scorn and ask to whom you are talking. By all means
flee solitude, for he lies in wait most for those alone. This devil is con-
quered by despising and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing.
Therefore, Jerome, joke and play games with my wife and others, in
which way you will drive out your diabolic thoughts and take cour-
age. . . .

Be strong and cheerful and cast out those monstrous thoughts.
Whenever the devil harasses you thus, seek the company of men or
drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing.
Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even
sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troub-
ling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too con-
scientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you : " Do not
drink," answer him : " I will drink, and right freely, just because

1 Later vice-chancellor of Electoral Saxony. Luther played a good game of

chess, himself. »

CHARACTER AND HABITS 325

you tell me not to." One must always do what Satan forbids. What
other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink,
talking so freely and making merry so often, except that I wish to
mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me. "Would
that I could contrive some great sin to spite the devil, that he might
understand that I would not even then acknowledge it and that I was
conscious of no sin whatever. We, whom the devil thus seeks to annoy,
should remove the whole decalogue from our hearts and minds.

No picture of Luther would be complete without making his
humor conspicuous.1 He was as fond of a joke or a good story
as was Abraham Lincoln ; his letters and table-talk are as full
of puns as are Shakespeare's plays. Like all puns they can only
be appreciated in the original. But of his stories, many of them
indeed old in his time, some specimens must be given, in order,
as the old English translation of the table talk-puts it, "to re-
fresh and recreate the company " : —

"Whatever one does in the world is wrong. It is with me as in the
fable of the old man, his son, and the ass ; 2 whatever I do is wrong.
One physician advises me to bathe my feet at bedtime, another
before dinner, a third in the morning, and a fourth at noon ; whatever
I do displeases some. So it is in other things ; if I speak I am turbu-
lent, if I keep silence I spit on the cross. Then Master Wiseacre comes
along and hits the poor beast on the rump.

Rustics are not equal to public affairs and spectacles, as is proved
by the passion play. "When a cobbler began to say his lines he could
only stammer out, "I am . . , I am ..." at which the manager re-
torted, "What are you then?" He replied, "I am a cobbler," and
the manager rejoined, "What are you doing here, then? Go home
and mend shoes." 8

I am the father of a great people, like Abraham, for I am respon-
sible for all the children of the monks and nuns who have renounced
their monastic vows.

1 Cf . E. Rolffs : Luther's Humor ein Stuck seiner Religion. In Preussische Jakr-
bucher, 1904, civ, 468-488.

2 Luther may have read this fable in'iEsop. It is also found in Poggio : Sales
et Facetiae, 1470, and from him in La Fontaine, who entitles it, " Le meunier, son
Jils et Vcine."

8 The two chief cycles of miracle plays at this time given in Germany were the
nativity cycle and the resurrection cycle. They were evidently sometimes given
in the style of Pyramus and Thisbe, played by Bottom the Weaver and company.

326 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Women wear veils because of the angels ; I wear trousers because of
the girls.

Peasants are proudest of wealth and yet uncouth, as can be seen by
the story of one who could not keep a fly from lighting on his spoon
and so finally ate it with his food. Another rustic in Mansfeld had
trouble in keeping a robin from perching on his bowl and so at last
ate it alive, and when he heard it still chirping in his stomach, said,
" So you keep on peeping, do you ? " and poured down a schooner of
beer to drown it.

A man was burned at Prague for teaching his dog to jump through
a ring when he said, ^ Luther." O Lord, how wondrous are thy ways !

When I am dead I shall be a ghost to plague bishops and priests
and godless monks, so that they will have more trouble with one dead
Luther than with a thousand living.

A liar must be careful. I sinned against this rule when I was a
student and said that permission had not been granted to take baths
on Sunday. An excellent story illustrating the same point is told about
a man who said he had seen some bees as big as sheep. When asked
how they could get through the little holes into their hives, he replied,
" Oh, I let them think of that for themselves."

Cannon are the very invention of Satan himself, for here one cannot
fight with sword or fist and all bravery perishes. Death comes before
one sees it. If Adam had seen such instruments as his children were
to make he would have died of sorrow.

Some of the stories will surprise those who conceive of a re-
former as a grave and proper curate ; such is the comparison
of three preachers with the persons of the Trinity : —

Bugenhagen is Minos, Rorer Aeacus, and CrOdel Rhadamanthus.
They are one substance in three persons, Bugenhagen the Father,
ROrer the Son, and Cr5del the Holy Ghost. They simply won't let me
alone, I have to do the Kyrie Eleison for CrOdel because he gave me
three or four kegs of beer ; ROrer orders me about the gospels and
collects ; and if Bugenhagen hears of some things I do, I shall have to
leave.

Another joke on Bugenhagen, who, notwithstanding his
dignified position in both the upper and lower worlds, seems to
have been unable to deliver a palatable sermon, was made about
the same time as the last : —

CHARACTER AND HABITS 327

When a woman put badly cooked food before her husband, he said,
" Oh, I expected that Bugenhagen would preach to-day."

Some of Luther's remarks have a humor to us not intended
by him. Such is his naive opinion of the French mode of ad-
dress : —

The question was mooted whether it were a sin to curse a French-
man, for they themselves have the custom of greeting their best friends
with a curse, as, " Pest and pox take you, my dear sir." Is it then a
sin when the mind is free from hatred ? Luther said : " Our words
should be Yea and Nay, and the name of the Lord is not to be taken
in vain, but it may well be that their curses are more innocent than
many a good-morning with us."

Luther's constant good spirits and joyousness are remarkable
when it is considered that he was a prey to several torturing
diseases. Indigestion with painful complications had set in at
the Wartburg, and occasionally returned. In 1523 he first ex-
perienced that nervous disease which throughout his life made
him suffer from dizziness, ringing in the ears, and sleeplessness.
Stone, at that time a very common disease of kidneys and bladder,
began in 1526 and became continually worse until the almost
fatal attack in 1537. Gout, rheumatism, sciatica, ulcers, ab-
scesses in the ears, toothache, and palpitation of the heart grad-
ually added their pains to make his life a constant agony. He
obtained little relief from physicians. He believed alcohol, a
certain irritant, to be good for the stone and for insomnia. Other
medicines prescribed undoubtedly made him rather worse than
better ; such were the disgusting remedies he took at Schinalkal-
den.1 His troubles become increasingly prominent in his letters
and table-talk. He always used what means were available for
recovery, though, indeed, the medical science of that day was
barbarous. Once he said : —

Our burgomaster asked me whether it was against God's will to
use medicine, for Carlstadt publicly preached that the sick should not
use drugs, but should only pray to God that his will be done. In reply
I asked the burgomaster if he ate when he was hungry, and when he
answered in the affirmative, I said, " You may then use medicine

1 Cf. letter to Katie, February 27, 1537, p. 312, note.

328 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

which is God's creature as much as food, drink, and other bodily

necessities."

It is no wonder that irritability and world-weariness grew
upon the afflicted man. To his friend Miiller, Luther writes,
for example, in a very melancholy way : —

TO CASPAR MULLER AT MANSFELD

(Wittenbehg,) January 19, 1536.

Grace and peace. My dear Chancellor, I have long been desirous of
writing you but have been laid up with a cold and cough. But my
chief illness is that the sun has shone on me too long, a disease, you know,
common and fatal to many. It makes some blind, others gray, sallow
and wrinkled. Perhaps the trouble with your toe is that you stubbed
it on a piece of mud hardened by the sun, albeit it is not the fault of
the dear sun that it hardens mud and softens wax, for everything must
act according to its nature and find its own place at last.

Of all things I should have liked to take Kegel as a boarder, but as our
student eating-club is just back from Jena 1 the table is full and I can-
not turn away old friends. But when a place is vacant, as may happen
at Easter, I will take him if my Lord Katie is gracious to me.

Of the English embassy,2 as you at Mansf eld are so curious, I know
nothing especial. Queen Catharine has just died, and they say her
daughter is mortally ill. She lost her cause with all the world except
with us poor beggars the Wittenberg theologians. We would have
kept her in her royal honor as was right. But this is the end and final
decision. The Pope acted in this matter like the Pope, promulgating
contradictory bulls and playing such a double game that it served him
right to be turned out of England, even if the Evangelic teaching did
not profit thereby. He cheated the king so that I could almost excuse
his Majesty, though I do not approve all his acts. Friend, let us pray
that the Pope get a stroke of epilepsy. The Pope's nuncio was here,
as you know, but I have not time to relate the answer he took back
to Schmalkalden. My cough prevents me hunting for it ; if I stop
coughing I will look for it. I think my cough would leave off if
you would pray for me. . . .

My Lord Katie greets you and asks, although I am already too much

1 The university, and with it Luther's student boarders, had removed to Jena
during the visitation of the plague.

2 On this and on the visit of the Pope's nuncio, Vergerio, cf . chapters xvn and
x*vm.

CHARACTER AND HABITS 329

in the sun, that you won't outshine yourself without shining on me.
Your godson, master Martin,1 greets you ; he is getting big but not
bad, God keep him ! God bless you. Don't mind my ways, for you
know that I am so hard and cross, gross, gray, and green, so overladen,
overcrowded and overstocked with business that once in a while, for
the sake of my poor carcass, I have to break out to a friend. A man is
no more than a man save that God can make what he will of one if
we only let him. Greet all good gentlemen and friends.

Dr. Martin Luther.

Much the same tone prevails in a letter written two years
later to Justus Jonas. This true friend had been a student at
Erfurt when Luther passed through on his way to Worms. He
left all to follow his hero, first to the memorable diet and then
back to Wittenberg, where his abilities soon won him a position
in the university and that of canon and provost of the Castle
Church. Till 1541, when he left to preach the gospel at Halle,
he was often a guest at Luther's table. His wife Catharine was
a great friend of Frau Luther.2 Jonas was a fine stylist and a
polished preacher. While he was absent on a visit Luther wrote
him this letter, in which sadness is mingled with that love of
nature so often expressed elsewhere : —

TO JUSTUS JONAS AT BRUNSWICK

(Wittenberg,) April 8, 1538.

Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Jonas, I do not wish to contend
with you in writing letters, and not without reason, first, because you
surpass me in genius and eloquence even by your hereditary gifts, and
then because you have much more material to write about, living, as
you do, among heroes and great deeds. I beg leave to think that the
armies of Trojans and Greeks would have grown cold before Troy
had not Homer blown so small a matter big with his immense gift of
language.

We confess Christ in quietness and confidence, but sometimes with-
out much strength. We are oppressed by business, especially Melanch-
thon and I, on account of your absence, and I am sick of it, for I am
an old veteran who has served his time and would prefer to spend my

1 Luther's four-year-old son. Cf. chapter xxxn.

2 Cf. letter to her, March 26, 1542, and to Jonas, December 25, 1542, and May
4, 1543.

330 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

days in the garden enjoying the senile pleasures of watching God's
wonders in the blooming of the trees, flowers, and grass, and in the
mating of the birds. I should have merited this pleasure and leisure
had I not deserved to be deprived of it on account of my past sins. . . .

Yours,

Martin Luther.

CHAPTEK XXX

AT WORK

After the return from Feste Coburg, Luther continued to
occupy the Wittenberg pulpit. His pastoral duties were espe-
cially heavy during the frequent absence of Bugenhagen, the
parish priest. On December 1, 1530, he wrote Link : —

I have not time to write to all, as I am not only Luther but Bugen-
hagen and notary-public and Moses and Jethro and what not ? all in
all, Jack of all trades and master of none.

As time went on his style became freer. He preached ex tem-
pore^ no longer writing out his sermons, many of which were
taken down by Borer. He often alluded in his sermons to ques-
tions of the day. One thing he especially cultivated was sim-
plicity, for, as he said : —

A preacher should bare his breast and give the simple folk milk,
for every day a new need of first principles arises. He should be dili-
gent with the catechism and serve out only milk leaving the strong
wine of high thoughts for private discussion with the wise. In my ser-
mons I do not think of Bugenhagen, Jonas, and Melanchthon, for they
know as much as I do, so I preach not to them but to my little Hans
and Lena and Elsa.1 It would be a foolish gardener who would attend
to one flower to the neglect of the great majority.

Luther's professorial work was also continued till his death.
An estimate of his contributions to Biblical exegesis has been
given in previous chapters. Some conception of his methods in
the classroom may be formed from this saying : —

Some masters rate the proud youngsters to make them feel what
they are, but I always praise the arguments of the boys, no matter
how crude they are, for Melanchthon's strict manner of overturning
the poor fellows so quickly displeases me. Every one must rise by
degrees, for no one can attain to excellence suddenly.

1 Luther's niece, Elsa Kaufman n.

332 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Luther also exercised a certain supervision over the morals
of his pupils, warning them against impurity, and endeavoring
to see justice done when they got into scrapes. An amusing
letter, written during a summer when a light epidemic of the
plague swept over Wittenberg, may be translated as showing
how like were the students of the sixteenth to those of the
twentieth century : —

TO JOHN FREDERIC, ELECTOR OF SAXONY

Wittenberg, July 9, 1535.
Grace and peace in Christ and my poor paternoster. Most serene,
highborn Prince, most gracious Lord ! Your Grace's chancellor, Dr.
Briick, has communicated to me the kind invitation to visit you while
the plague is here. I humbly thank your Grace for your care, and
will show myself ready to comply if there is real need. But your
bailiff, John von Metsch, is a reliable weather-cock ; he has the nose
of a vulture for the plague, and would smell it five yards under
ground. As long as he stays I cannot believe that there is any plague
here. A house or two may be infected, but the air is not tainted.
There has been neither death nor new case since Tuesday, but as the
dog-days are near the boys are frightened, so I have given them a
vacation to quiet them until we see what is going to happen. I observe
that the said youths rather like the outcry about the plague ; some of
them get ulcers from their school-satchels, others colic from the books,
others scurvy from the pens, and others gout from the paper. The
ink of the rest has dried up, or else they have devoured long letters
from their mothers and so got homesickness and nostalgia ; indeed
there are more ailments of this kind than I can well recount. If
parents and guardians don't speedily cure these maladies it is to be
feared that an epidemic of them will wipe out all our future preach-
ers and teachers, so that nothing will be left but swine and dogs,
which perchance would please the papists. May Christ our Lord give
your Highness his grace and mercy (and to all Christian rulers) to
guard against such a plague as this, to the praise and honor of God
and to the vexation of Satan, that enemy of all decency and learning.
Amen. God bless you. Amen.

Your Grace's obedient

Martin Luther.

The most abiding portion of the Reformer's work is of course
contained in his writings. These are voluminous ; an incomplete

AT WORK 333

edition fills more than one hundred volumes. During his life-
time he was often urged to publish a complete edition of them,
but he disliked the idea, writing Capito that he felt a Saturn-
ian hunger to devour his offspring rather than a wish to give
them a new lease of life. To the citizens of Wittenberg and
Augsburg who made the same request he replied that he would
prefer that all his writings perish, so that only the Bible might
be read. He was finally induced, however, to supervise such an
edition undertaken by Rorer and Cruciger, of which, however,
only two volumes appeared before his death.

A number of Luther's letters were also published during his
lifetime, but not in large collections, as were those of Erasmus.
Those that saw the light were rather single epistles like pam-
phlets or newspaper articles of the present day. Nevertheless,
Luther's secretaries preserved a large number of letters, and
in 1540 some one told him they would be published. He re-
plied : —

Don't believe it ! No one will do it, though, to be sure, nothing has
given me more thought and trouble. I must often consider my answer
so as to say neither too much nor too little. . . . My letters are not
Ciceronian and oratorical like those of Grickel, but at least I have
substance if not elegant Latin.

Luther was, perhaps, too conscious of his own imperfect
Latinity. In 1516, writing to Mutian he apologizes that " this
barbarian Martin, accustomed only to cry out among geese,"
should venture to address so learned a man, and he rarely fails
to make similar excuses whenever he writes to a noted human-
ist. At these times he took especial pains with his diction, and
was capable of a certain refinement. He always wrote, indeed,
with correctness, and though he lacks the labored and often
pedantic Ciceronian style, so carefully cultivated by the schol-
ars of the Renaissance, he more than makes up for this de-
ficiency by the freshness and force of his Latin, which he treats
as if it were a living language.

In German, as has been pointed out, Luther was one of the
first authors. His greatest fault, perhaps, is verbosity. His
works contain endless repetition. He was conscious of this
defect himself, and regretted that he was unable " to be as

334 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

concise and perspicuous as Melanchthon and Amsdorf." " lam
garrulous and rhetorical,' ' he said at another time, and once
confessed, "Formerly I almost talked the world to death.
Then I could say more about a feather than now about a farm,
and yet I do not like verbosity."

Another quality, nearly allied to this, very obvious in all
Luther's writings, and felt by him as a lack, is the absence of
system. The Reformer was no organizer ; he had not the gift
of ordered presentation. This quality, which he admired so much
in Melanchthon and would have admired still more in Calvin,
has sometimes been said to be usually lacking in Germans.
These deep thinkers, patient searchers after truth, and great
poets have not the ability, so characteristic of the French, of
presenting their thought in a clear, systematic form. Even the
greatest German masterpiece, Faust, with all its sublime poetry
and profound thought and feeling, has, according to classic
standards, little unity and at times imperfect coherence. To say
that Luther and his countrymen are somewhat less gifted in
this regard is not saying anything against them. The deepest
thinking is not always the most systematized. It has often been
charged against Shakespeare that he had no philosophy, and
Plato has been accused of being inconsistent.

Among the four hundred and twenty works from Luther's
pen, none, therefore, is to be found which gives in succinct form
the essentials of his philosophy. All his commentaries are con-
cerned with the text alone ; all his tracts are written to meet
the exigencies of some particular situation. Moreover he habit-
ually wrote at great speed, often finishing a work while the
first part was in press. Of his rapidity in composition he once
observed : —

I bring forth as soon as I conceive. First, I consider all my argu-
ments and words diligently from every point of view, so that I have a
perfect idea of my book before I begin to write. . . . But my enemies
the papists and others burst forth and bawl whatever comes into their
heads first.

Whatever his faults, however, Luther remains one of the
greatest of writers. His fury and his mirth are alike Titanic;

AT WORK 335

his polemics are informed with matchless vigor, and his musings
over the cradle of his baby are in the grand style. It is well
known that Goethe and Lessing and many another great German
author drank deep of the great river of his inspiration. To
foreign writers, too, he has been a mighty influence. Thomas
Carlyle, in his suggestive, impressionistic way, thus hits off his
qualities : * —

But in no books have I found a more robust, I will say noble,
faculty of a man than in these of Luther. A rugged honest homeliness,
simplicity ; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He flashes out illu-
mination from him ; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into
the very secret of the matter. Good humor, too, nay tender affection,
nobleness, and depth : this man could have been a poet too !

And Michelet, the greater historian of France, thus vividly
brings him before our eyes : 2 —

See how Luther appears, sublime and ridiculous (bouffon) musician
of this divine Yule-tide ; mirthful, angry, and terrible ; an Aristo-
phanic David, something between Moses and Rabelais. Nay, more
than all that, the People, or, as he magnificently named the people :
"My Lord Everybody " (Herr Omnes). This' lord is in Luther.

No English writer of his time can be compared with him.
Only Burke has equalled him in passion, sometimes degener-
ating into scurrility. His prose is perhaps nearer that of Milton
than of any other of our authors. Milton, to be sure, lacks
Luther's humor ; but they possess in common the long complex
sentences ; the vocabulary of each has the same taste of origin-
ality and radicality ; in both there is the same scholarly back-
ground ; the same vehemence, occasionally the same foul-
mouthed invective in the interest of piety. In another point,
not without its influence on style, the pair resembled each other,
namely, in their fondness for music and relative indifference to
other arts.3

1 Hero and Hero- Worship. The Hero as Priest.

2 Histoire de France, x, 108.

8 Cf. Chapter xxxi, p. 348. Milton had some familiarity with Luther's Latin
works, though he confesses that he had not " examined through them " all. Cf.
supra, p. 87.

CHAPTER XXXI

RELIGION AND CULTURE

The deepest part of Luther's life was his religion. Any
picture which failed to give a strong idea of this would be like
Hamlet with the prince, left out. To him the relation of the in-
dividual to God was not only the most serious fact in life, but
also the most practical, the atmosphere in which he lived and
moved and had his being. His formal writings are mainly con-
cerned with religion, his letters are saturated with it, and his
table-talk reveals the constancy with which his thoughts were
occupied with this subject. To his contemporaries these sayings
were mainly interesting as authoritative expositions of dogma,
to posterity they are hardly less valuable as keys to the heart of
a great prophet. The dogmatic system of the Evangelic Church
may be best studied in the treatises of its leader and in those
of his disciple Melanchthon, but the ethical part, taking the
word in its broadest sense as that which concerns the man's
rjOos, comes out most strongly in his incidental remarks. Luther
is greater than his work. His dogmatic system has lost part of
its hold upon mankind, and seems likely to lose still more, but
his influence on the ideals and culture of many an age to come
will remain.

To Luther himself, however, religion and doctrine were
nearly allied. The centre of his theology was the idea of just-
ification by faith in Christ, and the most important part of
the Saviour's work was the atonement ; indeed he warns his
followers against regarding Jesus merely as an example for
imitation.1

His faith and childlike trust are strongly painted in the fol-
lowing fragments of his conversations : —

We must rejoice in the Lord, but such joy will often lead us astray,
too. David had to endure many a temptation, to murder, adultery,
1 In the letter to the Christians of Strassburg, December 14, 1524, p. 155.

RELIGION AND CULTURE 337

and rapine until he turned to the fear of God and remained therein.
Therefore he says in the Second Psalm, " Serve the Lord with fear and
rejoice with trembling." They go together — joy and fear. My little
son Hans can do it before me, but I cannot do it before God. If I sit
and write and Hans sings a song over there and plays too noisily, I
speak to him about it and he sings more quietly with care and rever-
ence. So God will have us always joyful, but with fear and honor to
him.

The principal study of theology is to learn of Christ and know
him well. As we trust a good friend, knowing that he will show us
all good will, so we should trust the Lord to be gracious and merciful
to us. Therefore St. Peter says : " Grow in the knowledge of Christ,"
that is, believe that he is the best, most merciful and kindest Lord, on
whom alone we should depend and to whom we should cleave. Christ
also teaches that we know him only in the Holy Scripture, for he says :
u Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me." But
the devil hinders and greatly darkens this high knowledge in us and
brings it to pass that we trust a good, human friend more than the
Lord Christ.

I have studied diligently, but as yet I do not understand one word
of the Bible. I have not yet passed the primary class, but I am always
turning over in my mind what I know, and asking for comprehension
of the decalogue and the creed. It irks me not a little that I, a doc-
tor, with all my learning should willy nilly stay in the class with my
little Hans and Magdalene and go to s«hool with them. Who has ever
understood all the meaning of the words : " Our Father which art in
heaven " ? By faith in these words we know that the God who made
heaven and earth is our father, and that we are his children and none
can hurt us. The Angel Gabriel is my servant, Raphael is my groom,
and all other angels are ministering spirits to my various needs. Then,
perhaps, my good Father turns to and has me cast into prison or
beheaded or drowned, to try whether I have really learned these words,
or even the one " Father." For the faith in our hearts wavers and our
weakness suggests a doubt, " How do I know whether this is true ? "
The hardest word in all Scripture to understand is " thy " in the First
Commandment.

No one is able to calculate the wealth God spends feeding the birds,
even the useless ones. I fancy it costs God more than the revenue of
the King of France for one year to feed two sparrows. And what
about the other birds, larger and more rapacious ?

One night two little birds flew into the room, but were frightened

838 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

by us and would not let us approach. The doctor said to me : " Schlag-
inhauf en, these birds lack faith. They do not know how glad I am to
have them here nor that I would let no harm be done them. Thus do
we act toward God, who loves us and has given his Son for us."

Dr. Luther was playing with his dog and said : " The dog is the
most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so
common. Our Lord God has made his greatest gifts the commonest.
Eyes are the greatest of all gifts to living creatures. Little birds have
eyes like stars, so that they can see a fly across the room. But we
fools don't think of these gifts now, though we shall in the next
life."

From the first years in the monastery Luther's later life in-
herited a tinge of melancholy. Though he rarely again felt the
terrible despair of those days, he often had periods of depres-
sion. He was therefore very kind in understanding and helping
younger friends who felt the same trials. At times he said he
found relief from such thoughts in a good drink, or in other
pleasures of the senses. To Schlaginhaufen he gave the fol-
lowing more spiritual advice : —

The greatest temptation is this, when Satan says, " God hates sin-
ners and therefore hates you." Some feel this temptation one way,
some another. The devil always makes me think of my misdeeds,
as for example that in my youth I celebrated the sacrifice of the mass.
Thus he attacks some on their past life. But in his syllogism the
major premise is to be denied, for it is false that God hates sinners.
If the devil brings up the example of Sodom and such places, we must
reply by citing the fact that Christ was sent in the flesh. If God
hated sinners he would certainly not have sent his Son. He hates
only those who do not wish to be justified, that is, those who think
they are not sinners. Temptations of this sort are most valuable to
us ; they are not, I believe, our ruin but our education, and every
Christian should think that he cannot know Christ but by tempta-
tion, i

About ten years ago I first felt this despair and fear of divine
wrath.1 Afterwards I obtained rest when I married and had good

1 Luther speaks December 14, 1531. For the moment he is speaking of the
doubts he entertained when he first broke with the Church of Rome, a subject to
which he returns later. He next digresses to the old monastery days when he
felt doubts about his own salvation.

RELIGION AND CULTURE 339

days, but later it returned. When I complained to Staupitz he said he
had never felt such trials, " but as far as I can see," said he, " they are
more necessary to us than food and drink." Who feel such tempta-
tions should accustom themselves to bearing them, for so doing is real
Christianity. If Satan had not tried me thus I could not hate him so
much, nor do him so much harm, so that my trials seem to me gifts
of God, for I should have fallen into the abyss of hell through pride
had it not been for them. God has taught me that they are his free
gifts, for when it comes to a battle, I cannot single-handed conquer
one venial sin.

The papists and Anabaptists teach that if you would know Christ
you must be alone and not associate with men, like a hermit. This is
devilish advice. . . . Good-bye to those who say : —

" Keep to yourself apart.

" Then you are pure in heart."

The world does not know the hidden treasures of God. It cannot
be persuaded that the maid working obediently and the servant faith-
fully performing his duty, or the woman rearing her children are as
good as the praying monk who strikes his breast and wrestles with
his spirit.

One part of Luther's religion, borrowed from the popular
superstition of the age, was his belief in a personal devil. The
anecdote of his throwing his inkstand at the fiend, is, to be
sure, apocryphal, but i

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